LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



PS 2 8 7S 
gfjaii GujtJjrisliT ^n 

Shelf .-S2.L 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE FRAILTIES OF liyMAMlT 



AND OTHER POEMS, 



/ BY 

W. H. SMITH, M.D., Ph.D. 






9rc/ 



_ / 



" ClO^ 



NEW YORK: 

THE IRVING CO., PUBLISHERS, 

10 AND 12 Vandbwater Street. 






Copyright, 1894, 

BY 

W. H. SMITH. 



To all the noble army^ 

Who toil for others' good 
In daily lives that honor 

Our common brotherhood^ 
Thus showing that the spirit 

In them hath been imbibed 
To make the world the better^ 

This volume is inscribed. 



PROEM, 



Tills book is but a simple tome 

Designed to cheer the heart and home, 

To bring before the mind at ease 

The thonghts that profit and that please. 

And lead sojourners on the earth 

To truths immortal in their worth. 

A book when taken at its best 
Is nothing but a welcome guest; 
With pleasures that can never cloy, 
A certain source of perfect joy. 
That leaves its nutriment behind 
lu pabulum to feed the mind. 

The one who bows at wisdom's shrine. 
And follows in her ways divine. 
To knowledge that exalts the mind 
Above the others of his kind, 
Will learn this truth to comprehend: 
Each worthy volume is his friend. 

Books are with all their power fraught 
The treasure-house of ancient thought, 
That bring to view the days of ycre. 
And reproduce the worthy lore. 
As by the magic of the pen 
Is kept alive the former men. 



VI 



PROEM. 

We, like the pebbles on the shore. 
Are swept before the billow's roar, 
A monient's life, a transient breath. 
And then an endless rest in death. 
Yet age to age tlie truth will last 
As books anniliilate the past. 

Within their pages may be sought 
The gems of pure exalted thought, 
AVith pregnant power to impart 
A moral motor to the heart, 
Becoming thus for paths untried 
The human mentor, cliart and guide. 

Full armed with power to enthuse 
In others' lives exalted views, 
The spirit of the master mitids 
Through authors' tomes forever finds 
Its vent in ways designed to please 
And make us wisdom's legatees. 

For on the conflicts of this age. 
Directing yet the early sage 
From out tlie antelucan night 
Emits a steady glow of light, 
More brilliant than the pyrosome's. 
To guide us by his ancient tomes. 

Companions in our hours of ease. 
Adapted to instruct and please. 
Enabling those of humble fate 
To hold communion with the great 
And master minds upon the eartli, 
Good books are priceless in their worth. 



PROEM. 7ii 



In hope this volume may commend 
Itself to otliers as a friend. 
In merit meet to play a part. 
Ennobling to the mind and heart 
Of those who read from day to day. 
The author sends it on its way. 



THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY. 



Though people's failings may appear. 
If mentioned, rather strange and queer, 
And cause those hit to rave and storm. 
Yet thus perchance may come reform. 
So I will indicate a few, 
And tell how strangely people do, 
While treading o'er life's changing way, 
Appear and act from day to day. 

Perhaps we first should say that man,. 
So nobly formed on God's own plan. 
Doth for his fall in sin and shame. 
On woman seek to throw the blame. 
Declaring that 'twas Eve that ate 
The apple bringing baleful fate. 
Yet quite forgets the counter-tale 
That Satan ranks in sex as male. 

Just think of that, then answer this: 
Who was it gave the traitor kiss? 
No woman did the thing abhorred. 
Nor Peter-like denied her Lord, 
Nor from the Jewish Rabbi fled. 
But at the cross in duty led. 
She lingered last, her love was brave 
Who first appeared beside the grave. 



10 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Of woman so divinely meek 
Dotli evil tongues in slander speak^ 
As married monsters do declare 
That she is versed in pulling hair. 
Asserting one may feai- to sleep, 
Or ride, or walk, or run, or leap, 
But not to marry e'en a fop. 
If he should but the question pop. 

No greater dangers can be found 
Than in the marriage state abound, 
Yet woman braves these o^er and o'er; 
And Horace taught in days of yore 
That when she's asked to do the thing 
A singer can't be led to sing, 
But when she once performs a piece 
It takes some tact to make her cease. 

Should any of our women meet 
An Eastern one in naked feet, 
They would consider slie was rude 
To have those parts exposed and nude. 
While she in turn might scoff and sneer 
To see our charming ones appear 
Without a veil upon the face, 
Believing this a deep disgrace. 

Although against her man inveigh, 
Yet he can learn from woman's way; 
For what she cannot gain in fact 
By force, she brings about by tact. 
As seen when Samson found at length 
That all his vaunted giant strength 
Could not excite a woman's fears; 
She whipped him with a pair of shears. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 11 

Whene'er a liiisbaiid beats liis wife 
And lives witli her m daily strife, 
Some wonder how they get along, 
Tiie weaker matched against the strong, 
And think her lot is very drear, 
Without a ray of hope to clieer; 
But then she has this solace still, 
Perchance he soon may make his will. 

Who sees a gallon whiskey jug, 
Borne by a man with battered plug. 
May feel assured the poorest steak 
Is wdiat he to his home will take. 
Thus for the pleasure from the still 
His wife and children jiay the bill; 
Yet she such comforts should not scorn 
Who married him to brino- j-eform. 



Of frogs and toads I've learned in fact. 
They will not do a single act 
Against their own and highest good, 
As using poisons for their food. 
No frog will e'er tobacco chew. 
And whiskey'd make a snake feel blue. 
But man will use the baleful stuff 
And rob his wife to get enough. 



When joined beneath the nuptial yoke 
Man claims to be the sturdy oak, 
While woman as the clinging vine 
Around his rugged form should twine; 
But when with whiskey man's asoak. 
Pie does not seem to be an oak. 
While woman, stiri-ed by love divine. 
Acts quite unlike a clinging vine. 



12 THE FBAILT1E8 OF HUMANITY 

In speaking of the woman kind. 
The weaker vessel, bear in mind, 
Is what men say; but then I guess 
She has her Avays to aid and bless. 
And as they journey on in life, 
^Tis sometimes man, and sometimes wife. 
Who mainly bears the work along; 
The weaker vessel oft is strong. 



In sickness also, one must see 
How very cranky man can be; 
For, when his family are in need, 
The doctor's bills he's apt to heed; 
But when the man himself is sick, 
For cost he caretli not a nick. 
As thoughtless he will then endure 
The largest bills to gain a cui'e. 

Though feigned diseases will appear, 
With others brought about by fear, 
Yet stranger still doth seem the trick 
Of those who fancy they are sick. 
As human beings surely can, 
When naught in fact doth ail the man, 
Who calls physicians for the cure 
Of that which he cannot endure. 



For such diseases, it is said, 
The doctors make their pills of bread. 
And with a remedy so pure 
Effect by faith a wondrous cure; 
As by the power of bread to save 
They often keep men from the grave. 
And whore its virtues will jiva,il 
The patient soon becorneth hale. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 13 

Physicians sometimes are coerced 
To call eacli case tliey treat the worst, 
For wlien in bed a man doth lie. 
With any chance for him to die. 
He'd rather have a bad disease 
Than from a milder his decease; 
Or, if restored, there's comfort in 
The knowledge of how sick lie's been. 



Whenever man is very ill. 
To recompense the doctor's skill 
He promises, whate'er the sum. 
The money certainly shall come ; 
But when restored to perfect health, 
To live in pleasure and in wealth, 
Enjoying life from day to day, 
He often will forget to pay. 

Of nostrums, that a qnack doth sell, 
The people will with wonder tell; 
About the way they can restore. 
And bring the dead to life once more. 
As remedies from strangers bought 
Appear to them with marvels fraught. 
While to physicians whom they know 
They'd scarcely take the time to go. 

An Indian doctor is the thing 
To open wide the purse's string. 
And reach the money for the art 
Of healing graven on his heart ; 
Wherein, 'tis thought, a savage can 
Surpass an educated man; 
Hence with disease and danger rife 
To him is oft entrusted life. 



14 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Since human folly is so blind, 

Physicians are of every kind. 

Some using drugs, and some the shakes, 

To cure the many ills and aches, 

And patients' whims, that in their range 

So varied seem exceeding strange ; 

Yet lack of wisdom will appear 

In other lines that are as queer. 

As when the grangers of the land. 
So honest, are by spite unmanned. 
And show a trifling weakness too. 
For with an enmity in view. 
Forgetting cost, they sometimes draw 
Their neighbors to the courts at law, 
And, wdiile they seek each other's harm. 
Will let the lawyer take the farm. 

I have a picture now in mind 
Which illustrates a case in kind: 
Two farmers once began a row 
About an old and brindle cow. 
And anxious each to win the fight. 
The picture showed the one aright 
Was pulling horns, the other tail. 
And lawyer milking in the pail. 

A man who vainly tried to preach. 
In order deathless souls to reach. 
But failing, medicine assayed. 
And though a like result was made. 
Success in law quite quickly won. 
Once being asked how this was done, 
Keplied: *'For spite men pay far more 
Than souls or bodies to restore," 



AND OTHER POEMS. 15 



E'en with the purpose of the court 
Some actions scarcely will comport, 
As when a witness, sworn forsooth. 
To tell exactly all the truth, 
Doth barely on his tale begin, 
When lawyers put objections in. 
And strive, cross-questioning so sly. 
To make the witness tell a lie. 



The clergy are the men of God, 
Above their fellows of the sod, 
A noble calling, true and grand. 
No better found in all the land 
Than those He summoned to the task. 
And yet the wages paid they ask, 
And of two churches choose the one 
Which gives of cash the largest sum. 

While all these men of righteous aim 
Desire but sinners to reclaim, 
Yet what the church demands they do 
To draw and fill each vacant pew. 
And while the Gospel way they teach 
May even fail the poor to reach; 
But wealthy sinners they must please. 
And then the church can be at ease. 



Some men are found so very loth 
To use a low and vulgar oath. 
Should they thus vent their spirits riled. 
They would believe their hearts defiled; 
But then they will by angry act 
Express the self-same thing; in fact. 
Their wooden swearing means a damn. 
As when they give the door a slam. 



16 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

And hypocrites we often meet, 

Whose polished tongues deceive and cheat; 

Who tell with shameless brazen face 

How other men are vilely base. 

Forgetting that it must appear 

That those esteemed most perfect here 

Are men of unassuming worth. 

And not too good to walk the earth. 

The mote that's in a brother's eye 
Man is quite prone to magnify. 
But sees no beam within his own. 
Or seeing will the same disown; 
And in his sermons from the texb 
The man too often predilects 
The golden rule to others teach. 
As theirs to practice, his to preach. 

Although of idols men claim none. 
We often can distinguish one. 
Absurd enough to cause a laugh, 
As being but a golden calf; 
Yet by devotion most extreme 
His love for it appears supreme, 
As like the Israelites of old 
He worships at the shrine of gold. 



Whenever one departs from earth. 
The people tell his wondrous worth. 
And will his life as richly paint 
As if the man had been a saint. 
Contrast with those when life is o'er 
The stories current long before. 
And then perchance we'll have a sight 
Of him shown up in truthful light. 



AND OTIlKll POEMS. 17 

It may be well to pniise the dead, 
But if good things ai-e to be said, 
And kind words men desire to give, 
IM rather hear them while I live; 
The good that men may speak of me 
Might thus become a source of glee. 
But, if they wait till I am dead, 
It matters little what is said. 



Our cherished lost we should respect. 
Yet people know, if they reflect. 
That many bury in the grave 
The money which they ought to save 
To buy the living food to eat. 
Forgetting that it is unmeet 
Beyond one's proper means to go 
To make a grand funereal show. 

Again we always mourn for those 
AVho have escaped from earthly woes, 
!N"ot stopping oft to note that this 
Is but the way to endless bliss. 
And that our loved ones in the grave 
A legacy of pleasure gave, 
By bright companionship of worthy 
To us while living on the earth. 

All men are equal, so ^twas said 
By those who for our freedom bled. 
Which may be true before the law, 
But otherwise will show a flaw; 
As some with brains of largest size 
In wealth and power will quickly rise. 
While other heads of smaller space 
In lower ranks will find a place. 



18 THE FRA ILTIE8 OF HUMANITY 

The Publicans may kneel and pray. 
But Pharisees will have their clay; 
The soul of one is shown in grace. 
The other's heart is proud and base. 
Some men are honest, grand and true. 
While others doth the vile pursue; 
To call them equal would proclaim 
That right and wrong were both the same. 

The Hindoo makes a god of clay 
To which he's wont to bow and pray, 
And, though they worship things like these. 
Such people, when their gods displease. 
Will punish them with whip or rod. 
And worship then the self-same god. 
Divine the forms thus thrashed they hold. 
Though how "'tis done cannot be told. 

E'en so it is in things of state, 
Where human-made the leaders great 
Are worshipped, though so oft relax. 
And punished with avenging whacks; 
Yet confidence they do not lose. 
Though varied trusts they may abuse. 
For people strangely can believe 
Such men will not again deceive. 

In common life we see, in fact. 
How singular the people act; 
The social fib and pure deceit 
AVill spring from lips to please or cheat. 
While sham will have a ready place. 
And walk the streets with brazen face. 
To make a show and win esteem. 
Thus men are rarely what they seem. 



AND OTUFAl POEMS. 19 

On New Year's dny, man doth resolve 
Th"t he will self from vice absolve. 
He'll cense to smoke and stop his drink; 
From filthy habits he will shrink; 
A new life people then begin, 
Exempt from every phase of sin. 
And in this thing they are sincere. 
But fall to start anew each year. 

Thus men live on from day to day; 
Though sometimes right they're oft astray; 
Their fine reforms will come to naught. 
As by old vice they're quickly caught, 
And in the toils and meshes deep 
The native self above will keep. 
And raise them up to lives of worth — 
Or actiiig sham they walk the earth. 



THE PRESENT HUMANITY BETTER THAN 
THE PAST. 

Do not forget the progress. 

While viewing the sham of the age. 
For there is no brighter record 

Inscribed on history's page 
Than the grand and glorious present; 

As the world forever moves, 
And with all its vice and folly 

The human race improves. 

The mighty host of righteous, 

Sui'passing in number the base, 
And endowed with Chiistian fervor, 

By virtue honor the race, 
As they follow the Master's footsteps 

In the way the spirit leads. 
Through nobleness of manliood 

To pure and lofty deeds. 



20 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Weave them the crown of honor 

Belonging to excellent worth. 
Who by grand, nnselfish action 

Do good upon the earth, 
Whose humanity is stronger 

Than the sordid love of greed. 
And never stoops to baseness, 

But keejis the Christian creed. 



TRUE COURAGE. 

True courage consists in the doing 

Of deeds with the manliest grace. 
And never avoiding the dangers 

Which duty may call one to face; 
Thus tested though bad frightened soldiers 

In battle were always about. 
Yet those should be counted as heroes 

Who didn't let their legs find it out. 



UNNECESSARY. 

I must live, said the dolt. 
But a wise man replied. 

That need, sir, no one 
Could discern, if he tried. 



THE GENTLEMAN. 

By chance a lone washwoman, passing the street. 
Some lads of the village once hap[*ened to meet, 
AVhen one quickly raising his hat from his head, 
** Good-morning," politely and fittingly said. 
His playmates deriding, declared it a shame, 
'J'hat a lady and woman were treated the same; 
Yet her standing, quoth he, is not questioned in fact. 
But do I as a gentleman know how to act. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 21 

That answer was noble, and gave a reproof, 

Which otliers shoiihl heed, for ihe lad spoke the trntli; 

As often one's acts to the lowly of earth 

Eeveal nature's nobleman, peerless in worth, 

Far better than treatment of wealthy and great. 

Since all men will honor a lordly estate; 

Bnt a gentleman's dress on the back of a boor 

Is often disclosed when he meets with the poor. 



No gentleman ever, with gibe and with jeer, 

AVill rail at a woman howe'er she appear, 

Or the mother who bore him, ashamed of her son, 

AVould blush in deep sorrow for what he had done; 

Forever around ns in visions so bright 

Stand women as mothers, true angels of light. 

And scorned be the monster whose heart is so base 

That he would the sex of his mother disgrace. 



No gentleman either in wrong will persist, 

Or think to show courage by shaking his fist 

In the face of another, or under his nose ; 

Such acts show the ruffian, whatever his clothes , 

No low, filthy habit like whiskey's misuse. 

Nor chewing tobacco, or other abuse; 

Not clothing nor jewels give greatness to man. 

But by deeds that are noble you may lead in the van. 



As honesty often will keep a man poor. 

Who is steadfast to I'ight howe'er wealth may allure, 

So civility spoils reputations for wit 

When good breeding bars one from makiiig a hit; 

For gentlemen never make light of men's woes, 

But o'er others' failui'es their eyelids will close, 

Since the latter were given by (jod from the skies 

To prevent adverse vision by closing the eyes. 



22 TJiE FRAIL Tim OF BUM AN IT f 

Yet better than maimers, aye, grandest of earth, 

Is character ever of excellent worth, 

Wheu witnessed by deeds that in spirit divine 

Like those of the Master in purity shine ; 

For stainless in heart are lininanity's best, 

And this rule that is golden thy manhood will test: 

If a gentleman, always to others you'll do 

As you would that others should do nnto you. 



THE CROWNING WORK OF CREATION. 

AVhen God had made this Avorld of ours. 

And set tlie stars in glory bright 
W^ithin the heavenly firmament. 

To give celestial light. 
And brought the varied creatures forth, 

W^itli wisdom superhuman 
He crowned creation with that grand 

And matchless work, a woman. 

Divinely fasliioned and endowed 

With love to rule the earth, 
AVith beauty's fascinating charms. 

And soul of peerless worth. 
Supremely grand and pure of heart, 

Angelic-like, yet human, 
The fairest, brightest and the best 

Of all God's works is woman. 



EGOTISM. 



Some men resemble cabbage. 

Doing well at first. 
But getting then the big-head. 

They are apt to burst. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 23 

THE MAKVELOUS AYORKS OF GOD. 

Men talk about the miracles 

In volumes old and sooty, 
AVhile all around are miracles 

In living forms of beauty ; 
For every blade of growing grass. 

And every blooming floAver 
Attest in glory, as we pass, 

Tlieir Maker's matchless power. 

And every animal that lives, 

On land or in the ocean. 
By perfect plan in grandeur gives 

A tribute for devotion ; 
While farther still our vision brings. 

From ages dim ajid hoary, 
A vanished host of living things. 

All miracles of glory. 

For all the forms upon the earth, 

The living and the fossil. 
Declare the power that gave them birth 

In grandeur was colossal; 
While tiny types in wisdom pearled 

Disclose upon inspection 
That everything within the world 

Is absolute perfection. 



And later, when the somber night 

Doth mantle all things over, 
Beside the glow-worm's murky light 

Each moth becomes a rover. 
The dusky owl pursues its prey, 

The song-birds cease their wooing. 
While dew-producing mistic spray 

The earth with gems is strewing. 



24 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Around the queen of niglit displayed, 

In grandeur all combining, 
Are myriad hosts of stars arrayed. 

Like diamonds brightly shining, 
That bear the soul on fancy's wing, 

Above all worldly pleasure, 
To view the universal king, 

Whose glory none can measure. 

Though earth will everywhere disclose 

Rich themes for contemplation. 
Yet 'tis the night that really shows 

The vastness of creation; 
For every distant star's a sun. 

With worlds like ours, but greater, 
A fiat of the Mighty One, 

The Infinite Creator. 

And in the distant realms of space, 

Beyoud mere human vision, 
The telescope new worlds will trace 

V/ith wonderful precision. 
Each one in workmanship divine. 

Illumined to engender 
The thought that God alone can shine 

In omnipresent splendor. 



NATURE SUBDUES MAN. 

Though man boasts of liis triumphs o'er nature indeed, 
And how of her forces the many he'll lead, 
'Tis a wrong way of s})eaking of what hath been done; 
In the conflicts with her it was nature which won; 
Her laws have existed through ages long passed; 
Unchanging and fixed they'll eti'i-nally last; 
To utilize them man must work in her way; 
Instead of subduing he must really obey. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 25 

LITHOPHYLLS. 

Th,e myriad leaves that grew on earth 

A mi 11 ion years ago, 
Tiieir form and outline on the rock 

In firm impressions show. 

They lived and fell as life must do, 

And crumbled in decay, 
But wrote their epitaphs in stone. 

Which will not pass away. 

Each midrib, vein, and dentate edge. 

Thou oh eons intervene, 
Unyielding as enduring stone. 

Is still in beauty seen. 

And thus, though frail and tender things. 

And delicate at birth. 
These fragile leaves by nature's laws 

Are permanent as earth. 

E'en so may we in ages hence 

Have left our impress here, 
In thoughts and words and actions done. 

That will not disappear. 

We are not born on earth to die. 

For aye the spiiit thrives, 
And what we are is reproduced 

In other people's lives. 

Each man may lose his name and place, 

And seem to be foi'got, 
Yet what he did and what he said, 

From earth will perish not. 



S6 THE FRAILTIES OP HUMANITY 

A coral host within the sea 

Its reef niuy slowly raise. 
And dying make an island where 

A hungry herd may graze. 

A host of microscopic life 

Once swarmed upon the sands. 

And through their bodies formed the bills 
Where lliclimond proudly stands. 

Thus tiny and insensate life 
Hath made these nseful iiills, 

And by completion of their work 
Endure like lithophylls. 

Before the pristine man appeared, 

The ancient earth once trod 
Unnumbered types and forms of life 

Seen only by their God. 

Though many such became extinct, 

The record of their lives 
From petrifactions in the rocks 

The human race derives. 

Though thoughtless of impressions made. 

Bestirred by want alone, 
These fossil forms have left behind 

Their photographs in stone. 

Like mummies from Egyptian tombs. 

And all the human kind, 
They fell before the reaper Death, 

But left their trail behind. 

A traveler up the mountain side 
Once asked a guide the way. 

But climbing hesitated when 
He heard the other sav: 



AND OTTim POEMS. 21 



it 



Clieei' lip, my frieiirl, tlie way is rough. 
But I lijive gone before, 
And what I've done you also can. 
Take heart and try once inoi-e." 

That inspiration sent to him, 

As voice from out tlie deep, 
And stimulated by the woi-ds,- 

He climbed the rugged steep. 

Thus inspiration comes to us 

In voices from the dead, 
Who tell us as they've gone before 

To follow in their tread. 

In myriad ways the dead still speak 

As through a great machine 
Devised to do the work of man 

Their toil and brain are seen. 

For every great invention which 

Our race may proudly gain 
Is but the child tli rough ages grown 

From some departed brain. 

Though modern science proudly shines, 

Resplendent evermore, 
Yet all must trace its rudiments 

In those who went before. 

No scholar in these modern times 

Astronomy could learn 
Had not the long-departed ones 

Observed the planets turn. 

And none could master any branch 

Wherein he might be leil 
If forced to trace its rudiments 
.Unaided by tiie dead. 



28 THE FRAIL TIES OF HUM A NITY 

Instructed by the Saracens 
In sines and surds and roots, 

Tlie modern scholar proudly now 
In algebra computes. 

The old Phoenicians lived and gave 

The world an alphabet. 
They died, but still those letters are 

In use among us yet. 

The Indian scholars long ago 
Through Arab channels sent 

To Europe for arithmetic. 
The figures grandly lent. 

The Saracens through chemistry 

Proclaim from pole to pole 
A science that throughout the world 

Shall human life control. 

From Coster and through Guttenberg 
The printing press imparts 

The royal art preservative 
Of all the other arts. 

Hippocrates, and Themison, 

And Galen all are dead. 
But yet their obsei'vations made 

In medicine are read. 

Although Pare is in his tomb, 
As wounds no longer burn. 

The ligature benignly stands 
A trophy o'er liis urn. 

A Jenner dead may yet proclaim 
His conquests o'er an«l o'er. 

Through vaccination which declares 
That small-pox be no more. 



AND OTHEll POEMS. 29 

A Harvey speaks in flowing blood, 

Jacquard still i-uns his loom, 
And Hunter yet in aneurisms 

Saves mortals from the tomb. 

A Priestly shows us oxygen," 

A Franklin flies his kite. 
And Morse behind tlie telegraph 

Still stands in living light. 

A Hargreaves runs his jenny yet, 

A Watt the throttle moves. 
And Fulton lives in steamboat lines 

As age on age improves. 

A Leibnitz speaks through calculus, 

A Kepler in his laws, 
A Galileo moves the world. 

And Newton shows the cause. 

Inventing logarythmic lore 

A Napier lives to-day. 
Since doubling astronomic lifo 

He could not pass away. 

These men called dead will never die, 

For lol in matchless worth, 
Througli works that elevate the race 

Their spirits walk the earth. 

They are the dear departed ones. 

Who, absent from us here. 
In thoughts and acts and peerless deeds 

Are still forever near. 

Forever shine those lofty souls 

Who from the glorious root 
And tree of immortality 

Have plucked the living fruit. 



30 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

For nobleness in other lines 

The hnniun race enshrine, 
The lofty souls wlio ilo the work 

That seems to us divine. 

Thus Sadi, who in Shiraz groves. 
Through sweetness of iiis song, . 

Became the Persian nightingale. 
Immortal lives along. 

A Hafiz, scorning every court. 

With bright poetic fire. 
Still lives amid the Persian vales 

With magic in his lyre. 

To stately verse a Milton yet 

A rich profusioii givesj 
And in the thoughts that cannot die 

Immortal Shakespeare lives. 

A Dante in his ^' Comedy " 

Forevermore will shine, 
As by his grand and matchless work 

The man became divine. 

Paul Gerhard ages past hath joined 
The silent, sleeping throng. 

But lives in* German sacred verse 
Unequaled still in song. 

A Macias in his strains of love 

Lives on historic page. 
As one who left tlirough human hearts 

An impress on his age. 

Camoens in his ^'Lusiad^' 

Exalts his country's fame, 
And Portugal its honors still 

Bestow upon his name. 



ANIi OTHER POEMS. ai 

Thongli EvaUrs soul went out in grief. 

His verses pure and sti'ong, 
Neglected once, liave now become 

The Dauisli nation's song. 

Bold Lodbrok stands in prison vile, 

Inhales the serpent's breatli, 
And fearless writes for ages hence 

His famous song of death. 

To Vondel, Father Cats and Bor, 

A race its tribute brings, 
And in the Netherlands to-day 

The '' Swan of Holland " sings. 

The persecuted Troubadours 

0[)pressed by blighting wrong, 
Produced in France a ^^ Court of Love,'' 

Resurgent from their song. 

Amid the darkness and the mists 

A Geijer seeking truth, 
Hath traced the haunts of mortals when 

The earth was in its youth. 

Tegner then follows in his track. 
And from these ancient bones 
A new inspired Saga comes, 
. To speak in runic tones. 

Of Christians battling with the Moors, 

And Spanish life antique, 
A thousand ballads still extant 

Thi'ough nameless authors speak. 

Unnumbered bards in every land 

Thus shared the common lot. 
Yet left their songs in human hearts. 

From which they perish not. 



32 TUL: FnAILTll^:S OF nUMANIVY 

Their ballads reaching back amid 

The infancy of earth, 
Beyond tlie childhood of our race, 

Describe it from its birth. 

Long ere the dawn of history, 

Thus bards benignly stand 
To voice the thoughts and hopes of man 

Within the youthful land. 

The annals that their songs have kept. 

With gems of genius pearled, 
In molding scholarship to-day. 

Are potent in the world. 

The tales of paganism dead 

Tiie Servic poet tells, 
Kesembling as they come to us 

The chimes of distant bells. 

The Pharaohs and the Ptolemies 

Long since were overthrown, 
Yet left the key to trace their lives 

Upon Rosetta stone. 

The Christly sermon on the mount 

Unnntnbered hosts yet thrill. 
And Peter, Matthew, Mark and Luke 

And Paul are preaching still. 

Immortal thus the record stands 

Of those who lived of yore. 
Whose thoughts and deeds will sway men's hearts 

Till time shall be no more. 

The nations rise, the nations fall, 

But books tlie lands outlast. 
In volumes tliat but garner up 

The life of all the past. 



AND Til Ell POEMS. 33 

Of ages gone the works produced 

The bright coiisn inmate llower. 
Abiding stil! to civilize 

Appear with niatcliless power. 

In other ways the deathless dead 

Their accents still prolong, 
Ke-echoed down the aisles of time 

In ever-present song. 

Unnumbered bards in modern times 

Resetting but bequeath 
To ns the flowers of ages gone, 

In one grand floral wreath. 

Thus authors in the present days 

But rouse the dead once more, 
And borrow for their polished works 

From genius gone before. 

An ancient trouvere lived and died. 

Yet from his song Voltaire 
Derived the thought that now appears 

Rewritten in his "Zaire." 

Another trouvere passed away 

And seemed to be forgot, 
Yet " Renard '' came from Goethe's pen 

To prove he dieth not. 

A Swabic legend makes a "Faust/^ 

Whom authors dramatize, 
And Goethe's genius reproduced 

In verse that never dies. 

In rincienfc Greece Euripides 

x\ii '• I})Mi?zenia " wrote, 
While lo ! Racine and Goethe's pens 

That tale embellished quote. 



34 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

The beauty of tlie Gi-ecian thought 

Is reproduced to view, 
But changed by genius' lofty touch 

To seem sublimely new. 

'' Laocoon," that brilliant gem. 

Is but an ancient lay 
Eeset in modern German verse 

As Lessing's borrowed lay. 

By apologues that imitate 
Tlie ones in J^sop's name, . 

Lokman attained the topmost height 
Of Oriental fame. 

And joining with these fables new. 

To glory Phgedrus rose, 
While to the self-same apologues 

Fontaine his honor owes. 

Through '^Jack the Giant Killer" still. 
And Blue Beard's broken tryst. 

The ancient Scandinavic bards 
In modern times exist. 

Though Hungary her Josika 

Exalts to rightful fame, 
Yet all concede from Walter Scott 

His borrowed model came. 

The '' Faerie Land," from Spenser's pen. 

Of life in times remote. 
Was fashioned largely by the thoughts 

Which Ariosto wrote. 

A ^' Fatal Dowry" was produced 

By Massinger of old. 
And in a Rowe's *'Fair Penitent" 

The story is retold. 



AND OTllKll rOKMS. 35 

A formula for writin.g plays 

Dumas obtained from Scribe, 
Wiiich Ibsen's genius tben transformed 

To please his Northern tribe. 

A hint from Andreini came 

To Milton's giant mind, 
And Paradise sublimely Lost 

Ennobles all mankind. 

Resetting Milton's ''Paradise" 

A Klopstock rose to fame, 
And chosen gems of Vico's thought 

Appear in Herder's name. 

John Lydgate read Boccaccio's verse 

And made the tale his own. 
So from his pen and through his theft 

The " Fall of Princes" shone. 

The framework of that glorious hymn 

That Coleridge fame hath won 
Was lifted boldly to Mont Blanc 

From Fred erica Brun. 

is' pen 
Is seen in ^' i^Iontemayor/' 
Whose proud Diana tlms appears 
In I orrowed Grecian lore. 

Thence Tasso's bright "x\minta " came, 

Guarini's ''Fido'^' too, 
And Ramsey's "Gentle Shepherd" next 

Upon the model grew. 

The letters of Philostratus 

Awoke Ben Jonson's lyre. 
To ''Drinking Only with Thine Eyes," 

In rich but borrowed fire. 



36 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

And so Philostratiis before 
Through other authors trod, 

And from our Saviour record cribbed 
His ''Visit of a God/' 

A Dnphnis and a Chloe's love, 

The fond devoted pair, 
Whom Longus traced in Lesbos isle. 

Was cribbed by St. Pierre. 

From Siillust, who in ancient Eome 

Grew to enduring fame, 
The model of Diego's war 

Against Granada came. 

And Sallust hath his style derived 

From Gi'eek Thucydides, 
While many of his brightest thoughts 

Came from Isocrates. 

Macauley's hit at Doctor Nares 
Was filched from Boccalin, 

And his well-knovv-n 'New Zealander 
In Volney may be seen. 

Dumont let fall the gems of thought 

Which Mirabeau retook, 
And Fox was often primed by Burke, . 

And Burke by Bolingbroke. 

And Paley's watch, which all admire. 

Seems hardly his aright. 
But cribbed to serve a noble aim 

From learned Nieuwentyt. 

Thus authors come and authors go. 
But still their thoughts live on, 

With potent might to move the world 
When they are dead and gone. 



AND OTUm POEMS. 37 

The greatest minds tlius often crib 

From those who lived of old. 
But always borrow silver gems 

And set the gems in gold. 

With giimt strength they grasp the truth. 

Like diamonds meet to shine. 
And polish it by genius touch 

Until it seems divine. 

^Tis ever thus that we progress. 

Since fire long ago 
Our fathers through Prometheus stole 

To set the world aglow. 

The early men from others stole 

The truths they learned of yoi'e. 
The Greeks the proud Chaldeans robbed. 

And Egypt of its lore. 

The world in progress journeyed on 

By adding truth to truth, 
Forgetting not what others learned 

When it was in its youth. 

Tims all which Egypt, Gi'eece, and Rome, 

And proud Judea k'arned. 
And Babylon of old observed. 

Is even yet discerned. 

The golden age of Pericles, 

And Rome's Augustan song, 
And England's Queen Elizabeth, 

Thus bear their thoughts along. 

And all the knowledge Europe's gained 

Of science and of art, 
To us as ti-ibutary strejim 

Its glory will impart. 



38 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Hence here within the western world. 
The brightest and the best, 

A nation rose sublimely grand, 
Eclipsing all the rest. 

But what is nov/ shall brighter be 

As heirs of all the past, 
Conjoined with all that now exists 

Our own shall be at last. 

The tributes that will come to us 

Before our course is run, 
Will see the highest hopes of man 

Within this land outdone. 

Divinely, too, the noble dead. 
Who righted grievous wrong. 

Implanted deep in human hearts 
Their power still prolong. 

Through lofty inspirations breathed. 

To mortal man so dear, 
Again in times that call for deeds 

Their spirit wdll appear. 

Forever thus the poet stands, 

A leader in the fight, 
As 'tis his soul that fires men 

To battle for the right. 

Defeated in Messenian war. 

When lame Tyrteeus sang. 
The Spartans, fired with ardor new. 

To strife and triumph sprang. 

The ancient ballads touching hearts 
Of men who were oppressed. 

Aroused the love of liberty 
Within the human breast. 



AND OTHER POKMS. 39 

An English poet cliants a song 

Upon the Bridge of Siglis, 
That touched a nation^s sense of wrong 

And some injustice dies. 

Cervantes saw fictitious aims 

Control tlie lives of men, 
And lo! a new-born race appeared, 

The trophy of his pen. 

Against tlie pope and Charles the Fifth, • 

Who ruled the Christian world, 
Bohl Luther in conviction firm 

His grim defiance hurled. 

Melanchthon toiled, Erasmus wrote, 

And others sought for facts 
Sustaining Luther^'s stnrdy strength 

To swing his battle ax. 

These great reformers dropped their pens. 
But through the work they wrought, 

Abide on earth, as soars the wind, 
Unshackled still in thought. 

The thirty years of blighting war 

Reduced the Gei-man state, 
Until he)" servile authors aimed 

The French to imitate. 

Then Lessing rose, a master mind. 

Her glory to renew, 
And brought the language Luther gave 

Sublimely back to view. 

Devoted sons of liberty, 

The Germans still pi'opine 
To those who served hor long and well. 

Like Arndt and Borne and Heine. 



40 THI£ FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

The noble Mrs. Browniug lives 

In words that cannot die, 
Since all of England she aroused 

To hear the *' Children's Cry/' 

A Cowper touched the shackled slave^ 
A Burns prolonged the note. 

Till others roused the English heart, 
Wliich human fetters smote. 

Longfellow in his silver notes 

Ee-echoed England's cry. 
And Wliittier and Lowell sang. 

This cruel wrong must die. 

As Mrs. Stowe and others wrote 
The human souls were stirred. 

Until their words 'mid battling hosts 
Immortal Lincoln heard. 

Long years the German princes toiled 

To make their nation one, 
When lo! a Bismarck's master mind 

Completes what they begun. 

And yet beneath beclouded skies. 

Appearing always murk, 
They did not really toil in vain. 

But live in Bismarck's work. 

A giant still in intellect, 

Alfonso lives because 
His strength of mind in ancient days 

Gave modern Spain her laws. 

And there a Lope de Vega's work 

Extends from age to age, 
A moldin.g hand which shows him yet 

Tlie monarch of the stage. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 41 

llis pen hath dropped, yet Winkelmann 

KesLirgent doth impart 
To modern times an ancient world 
Of sculpture and of art. 

Immortal men abiding still 

Their phantoms thus arise. 
To lord it o'er the earth for aye. 

And rule in thin disguise. 

The ripened years and hoary age 

Their liuman forms have bowed. 
But yet they stand like mountain tops 

With heads amid the clouds. 

As sentinels they keep their posts 

In endless watches tried, 
Or stand as lofty beacon lights 

The paths of men to guide. 

The record of such lives but proves 

A story often told, 
That where the brute in man is crushed 

The spirit may unfold. 

Thus led to lofty heights attained. 

And summit of renown, 
They stand w^ith power npon the earth 

Above the sceptered crown. 

For ruling us with potent might. 

Our vauntiugs to impeach, 
Adown the ages from the past 

The hands of dead men reach. 

Commingled with their matchless work. 

Which must our pride deplume. 
There rises from the ages gone 

An incubus of gloom. 



42 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

For in the outline of the past, 

Less promiuent to view, 
Remain the ghosts of man's disgrace 

Set firmly in each creux. 

The iron maid of Nuremberg, 

With beauty in her face, 
But veils the horrid spikes within, 

And terror of embrace. 

The thumbscrew, rack and ducking stool 

As faithful relics keep 
Still fresh the tale of former days 

When mercy was asleep. 

To all such emblems of our race. 

So shocking now to view. 
Attesting man's inhuman acts. 

We fain would bid adieu. 

The warriors who have lived and fought 

To win a deathless name. 
Exhibit deeds that move the world 

Commingled with their fame. 

As Alexander's conquest spread 

A nobler Greece arose 
Through learning gleaned upon the march 

Against their distant foes. 

Tlie culture that an Athens graced. 
Where sculpture had its home, 

The ancient eagle's victor tread 
Transplanted thence to Rome. 

The Roman nation grew by war. 
And paved the way forsooth, 

In its disruption for the spread 
Of new-born Christian truth. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 43 

In turn the Saracens arose 

And Allah's flag unfurled, 
Instructinp^ men in science lore, 

And arts that move the world. 

The ancient Normans came to France 

As bold piratic foes, 
Yet from the conquest which they wrought 

A line of authors rose. 

New poets struck the lofty lyre 

To notes of rugged strife, 
In bold, heroic, warlike deeds. 

Not love and idle life. 

Misguided rash fanaticism 

Begat the fierce Crusades, 
And led the pride of Europe forth 

In bloody, futile raids. 

Yet there amid those scenes of strife 

A new-born commerce sprung, 
And broader views of brotherhood 

Each bard returning sung. 

Then too the progress of the race 

In Europe was increased, 
As from the Holy Land her knights 

Brought learning from the East. 

A Bonaparte in haughty pride 

His grim defiance hurled. 
And led his mighty legions forth 

To conquest of the world. 

But then his proud dominion fell; 

No more the ^Ips and Rhine 
Composed, as in the ancient days, 

Of France the bounding line. 



I 



44 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

And he who ouce gave crowns away 

Was doomed to lose bis own. 
And die an outcast from ills home 

In prison sad and lone. 

But still his record tells the world 

How vain ain})itions are, 
Disclosing in his rise and fall 

The bright and waning star. 

In contrast stands a Washington, 

Opponent of tbe wrong, 
Embalmed in love and sanctified 

In history and song. 

And lo! the nation that he formed 

In glory still shall be 
The home of millions yet unborn. 

And pride of all the free. 

These men, who changed the maps of earth 

And bounds of many lands. 
In potent power to sway the world 

Still issue their commands. 

For sturdy blows that free the mind 
With proud advancement fraught. 

Will often come in feats of arms. 
And in the battles fought. 

As pure becomes the atmosphere 

Before the lightning's flash, 
So changed appears tlie state of man 

When mighty armies clash. 

Thus dread volcanoes shoot their flames 

To fertilize the earth, 
And lands eifete in war will fall, 

And others have their birth. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 45 

The world in times of peace seems bound 

To worship wealth alone, 
But in the shock and clash of arms 

Bold manhood claims its own. 

The rulers on men's rights encroach 

Till liberty seems dead, 
When freedom summons men to arms. 

And follows in their tread. 

Beneath tlie sound of clashing swords. 

Where fields of blood arise, 
And manhood claims the rights of man. 

The despot's power dies. 

The widow's wail, the orphan's cry 

For those who are no more. 
Is but the price the race has paid 

For progress o'er and o'er. 

Amid the middle ages' night. 

When Europe idly slept, 
The monks v/ithin the cloistered cells 

The ancient learning kept. 

When by Mohammed's bloody sword 

Constantinople fell. 
And mosques replaced the Christian church. 

And silenced each cresselle. 

The Grecian scholars in dismay 

To western Europe fled. 
And carried thence their manuscripts 

An.d writings of the dead. 

The books and scholarship tlius saved, 

Renascent there again, 
Became the great renaissance power 

In civilizing men. 



46 THE FRAILTIES OF IIUMANITT 

New commerce dawned upon the earth, 
AVhen, scorning ocean gales, 

Around the rocky Cape Good Hope 
The brave De Gama sails. 

Col nm bus firmly hehl his course 

Mid mutiny and storm. 
Until the Occident appeared 

To human life transform. 

For matchless bold intrepitude 

Magellan still is crowned. 
As lacking pilot, wind and chart. 

He proved the earth was round. 

Heroic men, immortal souls, 

Transcendent and divine. 
As those who changed the trend of life. 

Their deeds will ever shine. 

To speak of death for such as they, 

It is a senseless word, 
For in the changed conditions here 

Their voice is ever heard. 

Men do not die. There is no death; 

Our bodies but decay; 
But still our nobler selves will live 

And never pass away. 

The nations grow effete and die. 
But what was grand and true. 

As other nations take their place. 
Will spring again to view. 

Immortal thus are human deeds; 

Our brothers gone before 
Still live with potent power to sway 

The world for evermore. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 47 



All of the past is living still: 
The vile, the good, the true, 

Are present find imniortiil here, 
Though veiled from human view. 

And so all men who now exist, 

Of high or humble mien, 
In ages hence, through others' lives, 

Will walk the earth unseen. 



THE SHAMS OF THE AGE. 

In this model great Republic 

We've reversed the fathers' plan. 
Politicians seek the office. 

Not the office seek the man; 
Filled-up coffers make the statesmen. 

Money each election gains. 
Riches raise to high position, 

AVealth conceals a dearth of brains. 

False this standard of our manhood 

Patent in the land to-day; 
Base the spirit it inculcates 

For our children to obey. 
Character well-nigh_ forgotten, 

Poverty akin to sin. 
Scoundrels rank as men of honor. 

If they only have the tin. 

Cupid often yields to mammon, 

Making love-scenes our lost art. 
Diamonds forming bonds of marriage. 

Not attachments of the heart. 
And engagements, though once sacred, 

Oft appear of trifling force. 
Even holy matrimony 

May be severed by divorce. 



48 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Fashion sways the hearts of people. 

Bringing serfdom to our race. 
When h.er beck and call men answer 

Who are tailor-made in grace, 
And our noted dudes and dandies . 

Find the intellect and brain 
Less a proof of lofty manhood 

Than the flourish of a cane. 



Beauty made with pad and bustle 

Is a secret phase of art, 
While the elegance of lacing 

Woman only knows by heart; 
As the form by nature given 

Seems not fit for man's embrace. 
So behold the added luster 

Paint and powder give the face. 

Also we've adulterations; 

Since deodorized benzine, 
In tiiis age of substitution. 

Takes the place of kerosene. 
And in giving wine its color 

Men have learned the use of poke. 
While replacing our tobacco 

Cabbage makes the modern smoke. 

Chicory will do for coffee, 

Varied leaves suffice for tea, 
Brifkdust, ochre, fats and iron 

In om- chocolate may be; 
Peas and beans ;irt' ground in flour, 

Alum atlded to our yeast, 
U i "ose in the phice of sugar 

Furnish man a chance to feast. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 49 

In the fiuer grades of clothing 

Cotton tlireads the wools replace, 
Linen woven forms the damask, 

Ric-rac answers well for lace, 
Common leather hurnt to figure 

Makes the alligator shoe. 
While the sheepskin changed in tanning 

Often forms the kangaroo. 

Flocks and noils, and other refuse, 

With the product of the shears. 
Blent and fulled in shoddy fabric. 

Make the modern cassi meres; 
Plush appears for costly sealskin. 

Common prints replace nankeen, 
While instead of honest velvet 

People use the velveteen. 



Paper serves for table linen, 

Bogus jewelry is sold, 
Paste is used to" make the diamond. 

Roll-plate takes the place of gold; 
Even in exchanging money 

Counterfeited lead may pass, 
While in intellect there's nothing 

To compare with cheek and brass. 

Though about unstable buiklings 

Man is often wont to croak. 
Yet in that which he's erecting 

Painted pine resembles oak; 
Everywhere appears deception: 

In the ceiling, floor and jamb, 
While the furniture he uses 

Is a multiple of sham. 



50 THE FUA ILTIES OF HUMANITY 

E'en in daily conversation 

We beliold a striking change 
From the oUl and classic English, 

Wliich appears exceeding strange. 
As the language in which Milton, 

Dryden, Pope and Byron sung. 
Is enhanced in rich expression 

By the slangy, modern tongue. 



Also in our mental culture 

We have left the fathers' ways. 
By selecting for our reading, 

In these sickly, modern days. 
Weakly fiction and sensation, 

Not the lofty prose and. rhyme. 
But the sentimental story 

Always full of vice and crime. 



Even literary workers 

Are prolific in their shams, 
Writing oft in stately measure. 

Only trashy paragrams; 
Or, degrading more their manhood. 

They endorse with fulsome praise 
Any prevalent corruption. 

Thus producing nostrum lays. 

Congressmen are famed for speeches 

Which some humbler authors write; 
Husbands gain repute for wisdom 

Which their better halves indite; 
And the papers sound the gi;eatness 

Of the man with cash enough, 
And the weakness to disbuivse it. 

For insertion of the puff. 



AND OTllFAl P0EM8. 51 

Ladies at tlie summer beaches, 

Who would not their fingers soil, 
Oft the balance of tlie season 

In a humble manner toil; 
Wiiile the men of seeming riches 

May be mortgage-burdened too. 
And the rushing ones in business 

Have but little work to do. 

Brush away this imitation, 

Down with every kind of bam. 
Build thyself a nobler manhood, 

IS^ever stoop to vice or sham; 
But by grand and peerless action 

Do your part upon the earth. 
So that others may commend you 

For your candid, honest worth. 



LIFERS JOUKNEY. 

We are growing, ever growing 

Older in the march of life; 
Fleeting are the years behind us. 

Present moments still are rife. 
Are we using or abusing 

These so swiftly passing by? 
Do we guide to action upward. 

Or let error heedless lie? 

Words are flowing, lightly flowing 

From our lips upon the way; 
Are they such as we v/ill wish them 

In the final judgment day? 
Are they full of love and kijidness, 

Making others pathway bright? 
Or of biileful hate and censure, 

Poisoned thus with error's blight? 



52 THE FRAIL TIES OF HUMANITY 

We are sowing, daily sowing 

Seeds on every glade and hill; 
As we journey on life's pathway 

Fruit will grow for good or ill; 
Hence ahout tlie after reaping 

Careful we should think to-day; 
Shall we gather figs or thistles 

As we harvest on the way? 

Winds are blowing, freely blowing 

O'er life's current deep and wide. 
Bearing onward through the ages 

Germs that we have cast aside; 
Germs that grow for good or evil. 

Wafted round on every breath; 
Some bear fi'uit to life eternal, 

Others lead to endless death. 



We are going, surely going 

To a land beyond the tomb, 
Witii its brilliant streets of jasper, 

Brighter than the flowers that bloom; 
May we go with sheaves we've garnered, 

Purer than the stars of light, 
Not with talents from concealment 

Dark as emblems of the night. 

Men are showing, often showing 

Acts in fact they fain would hide. 
Yet the impress left behind them 

Ever will on earth abide; 
E'en as light goes on forever, 

Though the star may lose its place. 
So the sequence of our actions 

Even death cannot erase. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 53 

AN OBJECT LESSON. 

With pompous ostentation, 

By varied arts increased, 
A dude in stately clot In ng 

Once traveled in the East; 
Beholding whom a Moslem 

His little boy addressed, 
Achmet, son of Allah, 

A child among the blest. 
Be true and keep the Koran; 

Let naught its precepts dim. 
Lest you suffer degradation. 

And thus become like him. 



BE SURE YOUTiE EIGHT, THEN GO AHEAD. 

When once a grand and noble man 

O'erheard a'cringiug finnkey^s view. 
That men's behests should shape our course^ 

And we sliould do as others do. 
Away with this, rejoined the man. 

And let it nevermore be said 
You cringe and fawn at custom's calls; 

" Be sure you're right, then go ahead. "" 



That lesson was both true and grand, 

A?id taught how noble deeds are done: 
By marking out a royal path 

Alone success in life is w^on, 
For never hero shirks and fawns. 

And ne'er by others is he led, 
Nor ci-aven-like deserts his cause; 

Once sure he's right, he goes aliead. 



64 TEE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

If lives of worth are now your aim, 

This motto comes with force to you: 
To do whatever with your miglit 

Your hand on earth may find to do. 
And make a record tliat shall live 

When you are numbered v/ith the dead, 
As people ever honor those 

Who^re sure they're right, then go ahead. 



What though your fate may be to fall. 

And see your hopes eclipsed in night. 
And die a martyr ere your prime? 

They grandly win, w!io die for right ; 
Their heads may fall, their bones decay. 

Their blood for principle be shed, 
But ill their death they move the world, 

Who^'re sure they're right, then go ahead. 

There comes to man a time to die, 

^Tis when he dies at duty's call. 
Hence noble deeds are grandly done. 

And royal worth is shown by all. 
Who whether on the field of fame. 

Their blood like heroes nobly shed. 
Or in the quiet rounds of peace, 

Are sure they're right, tiien go ahead. 

Wliat boots to ns the useless life 

That shows no duty grandly done? 
What profits e'en the senseless yeaj's 

That bring no crown of glory won? 
Far better make the many few 

With rich and lustrous deeds o'erspread 
Than living long, but blessing not, 

Be sure you're right, then go ahead. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 55 

The world forever needs the men 

Who shower blessings on tlie earth. 
And by their grand and matchless deeds 

Attest their sterling regal worth ; 
Their stay below is all too brief ; 

Men mourn for them when life has fled. 
Because their every act declares 

We're sure we're right, then go ahead. 

'Tis only nature's noble souls 

Who rise above the flunkey's way, 
And lift our race to lives of worth, 

Eegardiug not what men may say ; 
These live for others, not for self. 

Thus doing noble acts instead 
Of cringing down at custom's call ; 

Once sure they're right, they go ahead. 

Then go where duty points the way. 

And keep this sterling truth in view: 
No matter how or when you fall. 

If to thy manhood thou art true. 
So live that when you're called to go. 

Of you it may be truly said, 
Here sleeps the one who on the earth 

Was sure 'twas right, then went ahead. 



A TEST OF HONESTY. 

The clerk has a character truly his own 
Who tempted is honest when left all alone. 



A BORE. 



The visit of one 

May well excite gloom, 
Who, when it is over. 

Cannot leave the room. 



56 THE FRATLTIE8 OF HUMANITf 

TKUTH AND FALSEHOOD MINGLE. 

Triitli and falsehood strangely mingle 
In this wondrous world of ours. 

Here is light and there is darkness 
Touching us with subtile powers. 

♦ Thus in all the great religions 

That diversely are commended 
To the millions blindly groping, 

There is truth with falsehood blended. 

From the tombs of ancient Egypt, 
With its systems that have perished. 

Blent with fables rightly banished, 

There are truths that should be cherished. 

In the Eddas of the Northland, 
Mixed with much that is pernicious 

There are rules of life and conduct 
That are really meretricious. 

In the Koran and the Vedas, 

And the proud Brahminic teaching, 

There are gems of truth and beauty 
Out beyond the error reaching. 

In the Persian Zend-Avesta, 

And the pagan Hindoo Shaster, 
There are precepts that resemble 
I Many taught by Christ, the Master. 

Truths that lead to higher living. 
Making men uprightly pious, 

And as noble in a j^agan 

As if taught by the Messias. 



AND OTHER POEMS. ^^ 

Yet in learning a religion 

Men are like tlie catechumen, 
Who behokls the truths but dimly 

Which at last liis soul illumine. 

What is grand in all religions 

Human souls should fondly cherish ; 

What is base, and what is vicious, 
That alone deserves to perish. 

This despite the narrow bigots 

Whose contracted views but libel 
Christ and all the love fraternal 

Taught within our blessed Bible. 

For behind all heathen idols 

Seen as objects of- devotion, 
God Supreme above the fetich. 

Still to lofty souls is procheiu. 

Hence, although we scorn the error, 

Tending downward to perdition. 
And despise the idol worship 

As a baleful superstition. 

Yet as truth and falsehood mingle 

Thus in these religious annals, 
We should i-ecognize what's noble, 

Though it comes thorough pagan channels. 

What care we if taught by Buddha, 

Or Confucius was the preacher. 
Truth is ever grand and lofty, 

Though a pngan be its teacher. 

Kot tlie m:in, but Giiristlike teaching. 

Not one's birth, but exaltation, 
Not the source, but trutii in^. mortal. 

Should command our admiration. 



58 THE FRAIL TIEIS F HUM A NITY 

THE CELESTIAL UNIVERSE. 

The vast celestial universe, 

Unfolded every night 
As planets, stars and satellites, 

With zodiacal light. 
Are mirrored on the firmament 

In brilliancy serene. 
Conceals a depth of wonders far 

Beyond the glory seen. 

For lo ! the myriad stars thus viewed. 

That deck the heavens o'ei-, 
Are joined on telescopic sight 

By twenty millions more. 
A binary host rotates around 

Each other day by day, 
While night by niglit their multitude 

Brings forth the milky way. 

The ancients mapped the firmament, 

And classified in groups 
The clustered gems of brilliant points. 

That keep tlieir place as troops. 
And relatively in their course 

Along the vaulted arch 
Appear and form a marshaled host. 

Like armies on the march. 

Orion leading thus his hounds. 

In ways he cannot clioose, 
Entranced by beauty's magic spell 

The Pleiades pursues. 
While hare and lion join the chase 

Across the starry plain, 
And see the hunter's glory fade 

in storms of wind and rain. 



AND OTHER POh'MS. 59 

Andromeda is there uiichuined 

Beside the winged steed, 
While Perseus with lover's zest 

Can rival hi in in speed, 
For nowhere in the universe 

Is there a resting place, 
But motion, life, and action rule 

Throughout tlie realm of space. 



Bootes with his club in hand 

The hunting dogs control. 
As held in leash they help him drive 

The bears around the pole, 
AVhile dragon, lizard, lynx, and king 

And queen within her chair. 
Strange fantasies of ancient thought. 

Are clustered round their lair. 



The constellations we thus view. 

Which in their courses fly, 
Are made of fires sparkling bright 

Set in the somber sky, 
Like goldeTi nails in crystal vault. 

Each varied bright and fair. 
And diamond-like shows in itself * 

Its own resplendence there. 

Thus Myra's glory fades away 

Before our watchful eyes^ 
And Algol's light is growing dim 

With others in the skies, 
While Betelguese two hundred days 

Of changing light we greet. 
And many in a siiorter time 

This story will repeat. 



60 THE FRAlLltES OP SUMANITT 

Capella yields her yellow flame. 

And Betelguese is red. 
While some in 'twinkliiii? rays of light 

A greeiiisli luster shed. 
Tims spangled o'er the firmament. 

From out eacli stellar sphere, 
In God's grand work through rays of light 

Diversities appear. 



So distant are those twinkling stars 

Wiiich gem the heavens at night. 
That sixteen billion miles a day, 

Which marks the speed of light, 
Would take some thirteen hundred days 

To reach the nearest one; 
Not those four billion times as far 

From earth as is our sun. 



The vortex of unnumbered worlds 

Beyond the milky way 
May have their seasons like our globe. 

With night succeeding day. 
Yet all we know is from their suns 

The light which had its birth 
In seven hundred thousand years 

Would only reach our earth. 

Immense as are the depths of space. 

Unlimited, profound. 
Yet gemlike there the firmament 

Is pierced and stellar crowned. 
While suns and stars and planets all 

The self same laws obey. 
Since every one is kept in place 

By gravitation's sway. 



AND OTHER FOKMK 61 

Who knows what lies beyond the stars? 

Who sets tlie bounds of space? 
What tliought can fathom or conceive 

Of Goil's abidino- place? 
We dwellers on tiiis pnnj earth, 

Mere grov'lings of the sod, 
Completely fail to compi-ehend 

The greater works of God. 

The snn, that brilliant orb of day, 

In photospheric robe, 
Which, fourteen hundred thousand times 

The volume of our globe, 
Though one and ninety million miles 

Removed from us afar, 
Still seems transcendent and sublime. 

Is but a little star. 



Who contemplates the heavens at night. 
When they in graiuleur shine, 

May find amid the JMaster's work, 

. So matchless and divine. 

The wisdom of the child, who said, 
That in the azure blue, 
^' The twinkling stars were gimlet holes 
To let God's glory through." 

Or he may catch another thought 

Revealed sublimely there, 
That if the outside view is found 

In glory everywhere. 
Supremely grand and beautiful. 

As viewed by mortals here. 
When we shall see the other side 

How then will heaven appear? 



6^ THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

GOD'S AVAY THE BEST. 

At Jupiter's accustomed way 

Of sending needed rain, 
An ancient Greek was often wont 

To grumble and complain; 
And when the god his murmurs heard^ 

He issued this command: 
** The grumbler shall control the storms 

To irrigate the land." 

The man essayed the master's task, 

Putfed up with haughty pride, 
That storms should follow his behest 

As universal guide; 
But in his folly could not see 

The thiugs which Zeus had known, 
That first his neighbor's crops would fail 

And last of ail his own. 

Methinks that men resemble him 

In folly every day. 
As self-conceited, vain and proud. 

They grumble by the way 
At what God does, yet fail to do 

Their duties one by one, 
As striving oft to do God's work 

They leave their own undone. 



THE IMPOTENCY OF WEALTH. 

Wealth is never happiness. 

Nor can it even buy. 
Glory, fame or honor, 

Or the deeds that deify; 
Nor exemption from the ailments 

That vex the human kind; 
Nor furnish compensation 

For deficiency of mind. 



AND OTHER POEMS, 63 



WASTE OF TIME. 



Men may neglect their duties. 
And their time be idly spent. 

Yet later on this waste of time 
One surely will repent. 



JUS VIKCET. 



"Wickedness in varied forms, 

With pestilential breath, 
As baleful ns the di-ead simoon," 

Runs faster far than death. 
Thus vice exhibits engle-speed, 

While truth is like the snail; 
Yet at the last, by Grod's decree. 

Shall right alone prevail. 



SELLI^^G THE SOUL. 

Men tell about a miser once. 

Who for a sixpence sold 
His soul unto Beelzebub, 

Because he wanted gold; 
And thus he* lost through sordid greed 

His never-dyiug soul. 
And went to live in torments while 

Eternal ages roll. 

Methinks that many are like him, 

While traveling o'er the earth, 
For gold they sell their principles. 

And all they have of worth. 
They seek their treasure here below. 

Forget their future weal. 
Have naught where neither moths corrupt^ 

Nor thieves break through and steal. 



64 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMAN ITT 

Will sncli a bargain really pay? 

Since life will soon be o'er, 
And riches they must leave on earth, 

Enjoy them nevermore; 
But still while ceaseless ages roll. 

And time is flying past, 
Throngh countless never-ending years 

Eternity shall last. 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MA;N". 

What though the skin of one be black. 

Or red, or brown, or yellow? 
When by the trace of lineage back 

Each nnm beholds his fellow 
Descended from a common pair, 

One father and one mother. 
So each the other's blood must share. 

And man to man be brother. 

What if perchance a man were born 

Upon some pagan islands, 
Or heard the bagpipe and the horn 

Amid the Scottish highlands? 
Erom Afric's sun to Greenland's snoW; 

The father and the mother 
Of both were one long years ago. 

And man to man is brother. 

What though the one be Greek or Jew, 

Or servant of the Master? 
Mohammedan, or Brahmin too. 

Or worship Zoroaster? 
Religion cannot make the man. 

Nor faith his manhood smother. 
For back of chnrch, and creed, and clan 

Lo every man's a brother^ 



AND OTHER POEMS. 55 

Wluit thongli the one may rule tlie kirk, 

Another be a dervis, 
And many poor be forced to work 

At humble types of service? 
Their blood that flowed through ages past 

Beyond the bounds of clanhood 
Proves still, despite all rank and caste, 

The oneness of their manhood. 



"What though the few the wealth may win. 

And many be enslaven. 
And some have valiant souls within. 

And others basely craven? 
God made them all, the vile and pure. 

In every rank and station. 
Of common blood, which should secure 

Unbounded fraternation. 



What though our race hath left a track 

Of blood and devastation. 
And human annals bear us back 

Through crime and depredation? 
To see the famous nations rise. 

In rude barbaric manner. 
O'er mounds of human sacrifice 

That tarnish every banner? 

What though injustice ruled the world 

When men were fratricidal, 
And underneath its flag unfurled 

Base passions would unbridle? 
A better day is dawning fast. 

And love to one another, 
Now dimly seen, will prove at last 

That man to man is brother. 



66 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

What if by hundreds sects on earth 

In discord have arisen. 
That martyr lives of peerless worth 

Have sacrificed in prison? 
As bigotry so often led 

Our race througli malediction, 
The blood of other men to shed 

For honest soul conviction. 



Wliat though with noble Christian creeds 

Were mingled execrations, 
When back of all the fiendish deeds 

And horrid immolations 
There stands the truth the Master taught 

That every man's our brother, 
And all our actions should be fraught 
^ With love to one another. 



What though the church hath left the course 

Of persecutions brutal? 
Yet naught but love can give it force, 

And make its being utile; 
Thus wealth may hedge the flock about. 

And hire a famous pastor, 
But these are dross and vain without 

The spirit of the Master. 



What though tlie clergyman attend 

In frequent exhortation, 
And wordy pray6rs from all ascend 

In earnest supplication? 



As proved by deeds that have their source 
In love to one another. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 67 

What boots to God or man the creeds, 

Or pniyers for life etonial, 
Unless conjoined with loft}- deeds 

And strewn with love fraternal? 
Since faith and work alike combined 

Is proof of conseci'ation, 
But faith when not the working kind 

Is simply profanation. 



What profit thongh the modern church 

Escape tlie ancient error, 
And lets a man in conscience search 

For truth nnawed by terror? 
Since unbelief within may grow 

Unless to faith supei-nal 
Its membershi}) divinely show 

A love that is fraternal. 



What good is also noble art. 

Or higher education, 
Unless devoted from the heart 

To human exaltation? 
Thus leading ns to ever act 

In love to one another 
By fecoo^nition of the fact 

That every man's onr brother. 



What though the claims of men we shun, 

And leave the path of duty. 
Or wrong to thetn by us be done 

To gain a robber's booty? 
Beyond the crime in truth we know. 

As conscience reaches deeper, 
T^iiese men our brothers are, and lo! 

We are our brother's keeper. 



TUE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

THE SCHOOL TEACHERS. 

Amid tlie glory of this age, 

Of lightning and of steam, 
There rises on the living page. 

Like pliantoms in a dream. 
The trace of superstition gone. 

As error holds its sway 
With light that moves forever on, 

Like dark spots in our day. 
Asmaculas and photosphere 

Commingle in the sun, 
And plants necrosed will oft appear. 

Denoting death begun; 
So in this age with glory dight, 

To learning preordained, 
Some melanotic spots of blight 

And error are maintained. 
Thus, though the world appear so wise. 

Some nations have their Jan, 
And evil spirits exorcise. 

With charm and talisman, 
While amulets and sortilege, 

And hocus-pocus spell. 
Beneath the social outer cledge, 

Of superstitions tell. 
And wizard necromancy feigns 

Its black, bewitching art. 
And fetish worship still retains 

Its hold upon the heart,. 
And error in a thousand forms. 

Though clad in thin disguise. 
Like insects that appear in swarms. 

The cultured mind descries. 
Against which false theurgic claims 

The schoolhouse is the light, 
Where teachers stand with lofty aims 

To guide the race aright. 



" AND OTUEll POEMS. 69 

Implanting in the youthful mind 

Those truths that yet shall sway 
The human hearts of every kind, 

And change our night to day. 
Thus as our country's future hope 

Instructors lead the mind, 
Far-sighted as by megascope. 

To leave tlie false behind, 
And gather up those nobler views, 

Those broader concepts rife. 
That heaven-born the race enthuse. 

And lift to higher life. 
For as a lofty beacon-light 

Above the rock-bound cliff 
Sublimely stands in peerless might 

Implanted on its Teneriffe, 
Though round its base the ocean's tide 

In angry billows leap, 
And storm-capped waves in power ride 

Across the briny deep. 
Yet through its rays in glory bright, 

Above the sui-ging tide, 
Still sends afar a flood of light. 

The paths of men to guide ; 
So by their influence teachers stand 

Upon a lofty steep, 
And from each schoolhouse in the land. 

Where they their vigils keep. 
Doth shine a steady stream of light 

In regal virtue crowned, 
Transforming by its potent might 

The people all around. 



70 TUE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

ORNITHOIDICHNITES. 

On tlie red Connecticut sandstone 

Of the Mesozoic age 
Are imprinted myriad footmarks 

Very puzzling to the sage ; 
As the animal that made them 

Science faileth to disclose, 
Whether monstrous bird or reptile 

Still no human being knows. 

Dinosaurs, prodigious reptiles, 

Partly mammal-like in form. 
With their massive limbs posterior. 

Triple-toed, as was the norm. 
Biped in their locomotion. 

Of ornithic type and mold, 
May have left upon the sandstone 

Footprints in the days of old. 

Then again a giant moa. 

Or some other mammoth bird, 
Like a huge, colossal ostrich, 

By the want of food bestirred. 
Wading o'er the plastic sandstone, 

May, in seeking for its prey. 
Thus have left behind the footprints 

That are still extant to-day. 

Possibly some other monster. 

Still to science quite unknown. 
In that early age existing, 

Left its vestiges in stone; 
Or creation might have fashioned 

Footprints on the yielding sand. 
In a way no human being 

Even yet can understand. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 

Thus the nature of these footmarks 

Shrewd philosophers raay guess; 
Or again tlie liighest wisdom 

May its ignorance confess; 
Or the proof of their existence, 

Being made so long ago, 
Some agnostics in their doubting 

Might declare we do not know. 

E'en so human reputations 

Of the famous and the great, 
Living onward through the ages 

In exalted high estate, 
Deathless in their proud attainments, 

Standing like a monolith. 
When assailed by modern ci-itics 

Are pronounced a doubtful myth. 

Bacon, proud, commanding genius. 

Justly famed in many ways, 
Gains new honors as the author 

Of immortal Shakespeare's plays; 
William Tell iiad no existence; 

And our famous Captain Smitli, 
And the noble Pocahontas, 

Now are found to be a nivth. 



Also Romulus and Remus 

With the wolf must disappear; 
And Napoleon in his glory 

Never had existence here; 
And lo! Nineveh, proud city. 

While its relics men exhume, 
Never, as we learn, existed, 

Nor was buried in the tomb. 



7S THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Berkeley even goes still further. 

And conceited doth insist 
That this truth he hath discovered: 

We ourselves do not exist, 
All is but a vain delusion, 

As philosophy serene 
Shows this world cognizes nothing — 

Only images are seen. 

Thus the world in growing wiser 

Hath the truth with myth allied, 
And the facts that erst existed 

Now by sages are denied, 
While the vaunted type of culture 

Found in high scholasticism 
In this ago of groat advancement 

Only leads to Pyrrhonism. 

In such times when wondrous critics 

All the knowledge of the ages flout, 
And some think the highest wisdom 

Ouly teaches men to doubt. 
It is well if we remember, 

In assuaging human grief, 
Heretofore the noble workers 

Have been men of firm belief. 



Those have all believed in something 

Who have been a power here, 
And to stand for their convictions. 

Never fjiiled through donbt or fear; 
For convinced beyond a question 

That the cause espoused was right. 
Firm in faith, they -knew no halting 

Howsoever went the fight. 



AND OTHER POEMS, 73 

^Tis belief that prompts to action, 

Spurring men from day to day, 
When they make the reputations 

That abide and live for aye, 
While the tiny, loutish critic 

Like a puppet snarls and nips 
At this source of strength and power. 

Yet expires in eclipse. 



In the work of man's advancement. 

Or of woman from a neif, 
Never yet was strong exertion 

Made by men of unbelief; 
As to break the human fetters 

Men are only borne along 
In determined, constant action. 

Who believe the thing is wrong. 

In this age when human learning 

To producing doubtance tends. 
And philosophy so vaunted 

In agnosticism ends, 
Wisdom says that greatness only 

Hitherto has been achieved 
By the men of steadfast purpose. 

Who in something have believed. 

Noble faith, thou giant power. 

Leading men to action high. 
Source of every grand endeavor. 

And the deeds that deify — 
May you stand throughout the ages 

Towering o'er the wrecks of time. 
Bearing fruit of thy inspiring 

In the deeds that are sublime. 



74 THE FRA IL TIES F HUM A NITV 

THE BLIND ANIMALS IN THE MAMj. 
CAVE. 

With power to send the liglitning's flash. 

To thunder in resounding crasli, 

And bid the solid earth to quake, 

And hills and lofty mountains shake. 

And even force old ocean dry, 

Or move the planets through the sky, 

Yet sightless orbs creation gave 

To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 

Witli power to sway the universe, 
And through the firmament disburse. 
Beyond the ken of human sight, 
T'he twinkling stars that gem the night, 
• Controlling planets in their course. 
The emblem of eternal force. 
Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
To creatures in Kentucky's cave. 

With power to make an armored host 
Surpassing any man can boast. 
As Polycystines are bedight, 
Cuirassed in si lex like a knight. 
And diatoms with matchless skill 
Are fashioned by creative will. 
Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 

With power the world that greets the eye 
With matchless grace to beautify. 
Attested by the shady bower, 
The growing plant, and blooming flower. 
And gems predestined here to sliine 
In richness that appears divine. 
Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 



AND OTHER POKMF^. 75 

Witli power to make tlie insect host 
Eclipse the proudest litiniaii boast. 
Ami cause its j'iclmess to unroll 
A wealth of beauty to the soul, 
In varied forms which all attest 
That what God does he does the best. 
Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 



With power to form an endless chain 
Of dwellers for the land and main, 
From giant whales to tinv mites. 
From pteropods to belemnites, 
And forms unnurnbei-ed and untold. 
Each perfect in its t3'})e and mold. 
Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 



With power to cause in varied ways 

The universe to sound his praise, 

As through the woijd and realms of space 

Wherever God's handiwoi-k we trace. 

Diversity designed to please 

Js what the vision always sees, 

So sightless orbs creation gave 

To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 



With power to make the human eye 
The glory all around descry, 
And cause the mind to contemplate 
The grandeur of a world so great, 
Yet needless would be orbs of sight 
To those who live in endless night. 
Hence sightless orbs creation gave 
To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 



76 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

CIVILIZED MAN A BARBARIAN STILL. 

Whoever reflects on the crimes of our race. 

In rapine or war so ready to kill. 
This truth in the record assuredly will trace: 

That civilized man^s a barbarian still. 

The one who with whip upon driving the street 
Will strike at a brute, needless pain to inflict. 

By the spirit of torture with which he's opplete. 
His claims to a civilized state interdict. 

The person who carries a chicken head down. 
Or follows up hunting and fishing for sport. 

Has a heart, whether found in the plebe or tlie crown, 
With civilization that's not en rapport. 

The civilized man, with transition complete, 

Will find sometliing better than murderous skill: 

'Tis acting uprightly, so none can repeat 
That civilized man's a barbarian still. 

Our race, when transformed, will be kind to the brute; 

Infliction of torture will not appear smart, 
And the rights of another none ever will loot 

When civilized man has a civilized heart. 

All hail to the day when in righteousness here 
Man drops from his nature the barbarous part, 

And doing what's right will thus make it appear 
That civilized man has a civilized heart. 



A SOURCE OF SAFETY. 

As the world is prone to slander 
All the great men who appear. 

To escape abuse and envy 
One must be a cipher here. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 77 

MARS. 

Our neighbor Mars, what gives thy light its ruddy 

glow? 
What climate keeps thy poles enwrapped in fields of 

snow? 
Old when this globe was young, and yet so like our 

earth, 
What mighty throes creation witnessed at thy birth? 

On thee the living, and all things inanimate. 

By gravitation are reduced one-half in weight; 

So shocks from falls and jumps need not excite one's 

fears. 
Though solar light in equal ratio disappears. 

Thy atmosphere, resembling ours, and yet more dense, 
May for thy lesser solar heat bring recompense, 
While gorgeous clouds, with changing winds and length- 
ened year. 
Make summer pleasant, though thy winter seems severe. 

With hemispheres diversified in land and sea, 
By hoary age from earthquakes and volcanoes free,' 
AVe recognize in thee the world of worlds most fair. 
And envy those who have their habitation there. 



THE NOBLE AIM. 

Though very many here aspire 

To be of the noblesse. 
Yet back of this there stands the truth. 

In which all acquiesce: 
The highest aim upon the earth 

Seeks not for wealth or gaudy dress, 
But acts of love and deeds of worth. 

With sterling truth and righteousness. 



78 TEE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

THE COQUETTE. 

A flirt is a woman, the trotli should be told, 

Who has trifled with love till her heart has grown cold; 

And for winning her favors fools only will yearn, 

As she's not true affection to give in return; 

l^ut men of a mind, we can truthfully say. 

Will let her go on in her own heartless way; 

Since her habits are such, by the life she has led. 

She could only bring sorrow to him she might wed. 

Incapable e'en to be constant and true. 

In a month she'd exchange her last love for a new; 

By the training she's taken, she nevermore can 

Be the faithful companion of any one man; 

Her old habits controlling, howe'er she might start. 

In a brief space of time she'd have change of the heart; 

And life thus be wrecked, as no man can- forget, 

Who is wedded forsooth to a heartless coquette. 

We're a bundle of habits, the good and the bad. 
And slaves to our acts, though repentant and sad; 
For each deed, that we're doing, but helps forge a chain 
That shall bind us forever in sunshine and rain; 
And of all that is blighting and bad from the first, 
The foolish coquette must appear as the worst; 
For she trifles with that which is noble on earth. 
E'en priceless in value and peerless in worth. 

Eventually too, to her sorrow she'll find, 

Tiie anguish of others was only a blind, 

And a snare to her feet, that hath led her along 

To fetter herself in the pathway of wrong; 

Like a slave driven on in her own chosen track. 

To go she'll find easy, but hard to turn back; 

And the trifling with others will not be forgot. 

When she's borne by her habits oft whither she'd not. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 79 

And tbiTsa coquette, once confirmed in her way, 

A slave to her passion will probably stay; 

Her jewel of woniaiiliood, almost divine, 

AVhich truly in glory should regally shine, 

Perverted and lost, like a gem in the night, 

A reflection of error and misery's blight; 

Tier heart calloused o'er by the ruin she's spread, 

So that marriage with her would be wedding the dead. 



IN WHAT SPIRIT. 

Not every one is qualified 

Beseemly to endure 
The fact that fate has cast his lot 

On earth among the poor. 
As only true philosophers, 

Unvexed by needless care. 
Have in themselves the proper mind 

Dread poverty to bear. 



A MEASURE OF BRAIN. 

Men only do their vaunting 
O'er the finest things possessed. 

Hence none will boast of money 
Unless that is his best. 



RATIONIS EXPERS. 

Some men have safety in the fact 
They have not mind enough to act. 
And do a thing in their career 
Which people would deride and jeer; 
Thus one who here remains a blank 
No man will ever call a crank, 
Nor find a brute devoid of brain 
That ever yet has gone insane; 
Hence, sheer stupidity, though sad. 
May save a man from going mad. 



so THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

TKANSGRESSION BRINGS PUNISHMENT. 

A boy in faiicy once I saw, 

A kind of monstrous one, 
Whose arm was long enough to reach 

Completely to the sun; 
He thrust it in that blazing orb 

And knew naught of the pain, 
Because sensation did not pass 

That distance to his brain. 

Three score and ten the years elapsed 

Before he could discern. 
By swift sensation on the nerves. 

About that early burn; 
But tlien he found that blighted arm 

A steady source of grief, 
For which he sought both near and far. 

But never found relief. 

This story but exemplifies 

An oft-forgotten ti-uth. 
That those v/lio tread forbidden ways 

Quite recklessly in youth, 
Will find that nature hath her laws. 

Which mortals must obey. 
And for transgression's foolish acta 

Humanity must pay. 

Diseases that are born of vice 

In early thoughtless years. 
Some then escape, though later on 

Their punishment appears; 
And as inheritance transmits. 

So in the course of time 
The children yet unborn may pay 

Their sire's debt for crime. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 81 

OPTIMA. 

Some may claim that tlieir jewels, or Croesus-like wealth. 

Should rank as transcendent in worth; 
Yet actions of love which can never be bought 

Are the most priceless things on the earth. 



THE LONG TONGUE. 

In nobleness did Doctor Gill 
His sacred office always fill, 
And such instruction did impart 
As gained from all a friendly heart. 

Yet he in pride himself would deck 
With bands of white about the neck. 
Which really gave a startling shock 
To one good sister in his flock. 

Who seeking him to right the wrong 
Declared the bands were far too long. 
And sadly had her spirits tried 
To find that he possessed such pride. 

Along her scissors had been brought. 
And thus equipped, she only sought 
Permission just to make a clip, 
And take from them a needless slip. 

The doctor, though indeed amused. 
Allowed the scissors to be used. 
While she with ready, dextrous hands 
Eeduced to proper length the bands. 

The task was done, she turned to go. 
He bade her stop and said he'd show 
A thing of hers was quite too long; 
Might he in turn correct the wrong? 



82 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Said she, " You may. That I should do 
A thing which causes pain to you 
'I must regret, and only ask 
That you will now perform your task/' 



" This thing,'' said he, '^ is quite too long, 
And oft does others grievous wrong; 
By it I've seen them foully stung; 
So, sister, now hold out your tongue." 

This story, if but read aright. 
Will bring this weakness to the light: 
A lack of conscience for our own 
While we'd our neighbor's sins atone. 

For others' faults we have a sight, 
And magnify each tiny mite. 
While our own wrongs we fail to find — 
Indeed to them we're always blind. 



THE MASTER'S RULE. 

In the days when the race was inhuman 
Christ never its laws would disown. 

But said that to punish a woman 
Let those without sin cast the stone. 

This precept should govern our actions. 
Controlling the plebe and the throne: 

In chastisement of all malefactions 
Let those without sin cast the stone. 

Too deep in our hearts and too many 
• Are the errors that all of us own. 
For us to be censors of any 

When those without sin cast the stone. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 83 

So none at anotlier should grumble 

As each to misconduct is prone, 
And conscience would make ns all humble 

If those without sin cast the stone. 

And not to the villainous mister 

WouLl society honors be shown, 
Witii scorn for the frail erring sister. 

If those without sin cast the stone. 

The heart that is prone to philander 
With the faults of a neighbor alone. 

Will learn to desist from its slander 
When those without sin cast the stone. 

The conscience that rails at a brother 

The sins of one's self will atone. 
Instead of assailing another, 

When those without sin cast the stone. 

Who stands like a rock in disaster 
^lay the weakness of others condone. 

Recalling the words of the Master, 
Let those without sin cast the stone. 



AFFECTATION RIDICULOUS. 

One truth I've learned of monkeys: 

Though seeming proud and vain. 
Yet in the highest climbing 

Of every quad ru mane 
His caudal part is patent 

Above the glen and dale, 
And " the higher the monkey climbs 

The more he shows his tail." 



84 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Some men resemble monkeys 

In imitative ways. 
As gormands of ambition 

And cormorants of praise. 
Who fancy that an office 

For wisdom will avail, 
Though *' the higher the monkey climbs 

The more he shows his tail." 



A man who wealth inherits 

May dress exceeding fine. 
And vaunting this as princely 

May tiiiuk himself divine, 
While underneath the gilding 

The truth will still prevail. 
That ^' the higher the monkey climbs 

The more he shows his tail." 



Exalted dudes and dandies, 

In haughty dress and mien, 
Combined with lack of knowledge. 

On every hand are seen; 
Though scorning their pretensions 

The people jeer and rail. 
Since '^ the higher the monkey climbs 

The more he shows his tail. 



The man who of his country 

Has grown to be ashamed. 
For supercilious baseness 

A fool has been proclaimed. 
Who unabashed exhibits 

Himself as paravail. 
For ^' the higher the monkey climbs 

The more he shows his tail." 



AND OTHER POEMS. 85 

In all the prond positions 

Aspiring men attain, 
A snob by such distinction 

But ridicule will gain, 
For witnessed by his greenness 

This truth will never fail, 
That " the higher the monkey climbs 

The more he shows his tail/' 



For one of lofty station 

Who malapertness shows. 
And those in ostentation 

Most pompous of their clothes. 
The people count as dullards 

Devoid of true morale, 
Hence ^' the higher the monkey climbs 

The more he shows his tail.*' 



No haughtiness of conduct 

Within the human span. 
Or arrogant assumption. 

Can make a dolt a man. 
As nothing of pretension 

Will grossness overvail — 
So *'the higher the monkey climbs 

The more he shows his tail." 



A man is never noble 

By the title that he bears, 
A man is never courtly 

By the clothing that he wears. 
When boorishness of conduct 

His standing will assail, 
For "the higlier the monkey climbs 

The more he shows his tail." 



86 THE FRAILTIEIS OF HUMANITY 

'TIS THE TKUTH ALONE THAT HURTS. 

In the quiet rounds of duty, 

Disregarding all your worth, 
Slanderous tongues will oft assail you 

In your walk upon the earth; 
For the world is full of envy. 

Which its venom often spurts, 
Yet this fact you should remember, 

^Tis the truth alone that hurts. 

As the mud of youthful throwing 

Often finds a lodging place. 
Yet will disappear in cleansing, 

Leaving of itself no trace. 
So with regal, lofty manhood 

Slander hath its woik in vain; 
Robbed by virtue of adherence, 

It can have no chance to stain. 

Only roughness on the surface 

Will enable plants to twine; 
Up a wall of polished granite 

Even ivy fails to climb; 
So with character that^s spotless 

Slander loseth all its sting. 
Since defects alone in manhood 

Giveth it the power to cling. 

Then erect a lofty standard 

In thy secret inmost soul. 
That against thy perfect manhood 

Slander ne'er can reacli its goal, 
Since protecting from its power 

Conscience will a ciiarm sup})ly. 
And the man whose life's untarnished 

Can all calumnies defy. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 87 

THE WOULD WOULD BE A PARADISE. 

If men would never learn the use 

Of vile, debauching liquor. 
And never of tobacco juice 

AVoiild make tlieir months the bicker. 
If filthy habits that intrude 

To sully man's demeanor, 
With proper firmness were tabooed. 

The world would be the cleaner. 

If men as trusts for worldly goods 

Would not combine to plunder, 
There would be fewer '' Brotherhoods" 

To rend the land asunder; 
For all in equity Avould share 

Of nature's great redundance. 
Supplied so amply everywhere 

That each might have abundance. 

If men were not so worldly wise. 

Despoiling those who labor, 
But rich and poor would recognize 

Each other as a neighbor. 
And in the place of sordid greed. 

Exacting to the letter, 
Would substitute the Christian creed. 

The world would be the better. 

If men looked less to selfish needs, 

And more to benefaction. 
If they cared less about their creeds. 

And more for honest action. 
If social fibs they would despise. 

And tongues would cease to slander, 
And all appear without disguise, 

The world would gain in candor. 



88 THE FRAILTIES OP EUMAmTY 

If men, instead of brutish force 

And arrogant behavior, 
Would only follow in their course 

The precepts of tlie Saviour, 
The present world transformed by this> 

As in milleuic vision, 
Would truly be a scene of bliss, 

Or paradise elysian. 



If Christian-like men would but speak 

In kindness of each other, 
And like the Master help the weak. 

Yet often erring brother, 
The glory of the second birth 

To mortals would be plainer. 
While by such conduct all the earth, 

In fact, would be the gainer. 



If men would draw no color line 

Against the weaker races, 
But only practice the divine. 

Transforming Christian graces, 
Discarding as a thin device 

Appearances external, 
Tlie world might be a paradise 

With more of deeds fraternal. 



If men would always do the right 

In noble, manly action. 
We nevermore would need to fight 

Against the power of faction. 
For heart with heart would then combine 

In honest, true endeavor, 
AVhile deeds fraternal and divine 

Would strew our paths forever. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 89 

THE IDEAL MAKES THE MAN. 

As outward acts from deep within 

The human lieart outflow, 
Hence those who iiave a low ideal 

In action will be low, 
While on tlie other hand the truth 

Will just as well apply 
That men w-ho have a high ideal 

In action will be high. 

Thus those who have a lofty aim 

And purpose here below 
Will rise above the baser kind 

Whose thoughts are ahvays low, 
Since in the making of a man 

His thoughts and acts will chime. 
And lofty meditations lead 

To deeds that are sublime. 



INSULTS UNWORTHY OF NOTICE. 

Remember this fact, as you^re passing along 

O'er the pathway of life, with light hopes or with strong. 

An insult 'tis said people often receive. 

And over this men who are foolish will grieve; 

But it's not worth the wiiile, sii^ce 'tis true as you live 

That none but a gentleman insults can give; 

And certain it is that no gentleman would 

Degrade thus himself, as he only could. 

From others such actions we'd even expect. 

Though excused by their dullness would never correct. 

As ignorance surely is always the cause 

V/hen a boor rudely tramples society's laws; 

To take note of either, though any one can. 

But ))roves him a fool in the guise of a man; 

For the gentleman wont to meet wrong with the right 

Is too dignified even to notice a slight. 



90 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

The habit of stickling for oiie^s little rights, 
And quickly iivenging tlie smallest of slights, 
Will make one inipleasaiit to otheis you know, 
And prove that his staiidanl of manhood is low. 
Then mold not your conduct on any such plan, 
But strive to become an agreeable man. 
For happy is he whose su})eiior mind 
To the frailties of others forever is blind. 



THE LESSON OF THE TOMB. 

Sad and mournful are our spirits, 

And our hearts and heads are bowed 
At the vision of a loved one 

In the casket and the shroud 
When our sorrow tells the pleasure 

His companionship once gave 
As it's measured by bereavement 

In consignment to the grave. 

For beyond the cheei'less dirges 

With their sweet, yet sad refrain, 
And the voice of lamentation 

Sending forth its moui-nful strain, 
There are visions of our loved one, 

Truly sanctified in gloom, 
Growing brfghter as we view them 

In the shadow of the tomb. 

Strange we better prize his virtue 

Since God called him to depart; 
Strange we realize his manhood 

Better through a broken heart; 
Strange we felt appreciation 

Less for him when he was near. 
And can sound his praises loudest 

When he can no longer hear. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 91 

So the words in anger spoken 

Harshly now witliin us burn. 
As they seem like bitter censors 

When beside the funeral nrn; 
Yet our anguish cannot better 

In a life tlie baleful blight, 
When tlie one whom we have wounded 

Cannot see the wrong made right. 



Would we profit by the lesson 

Coming from the funeral urn. 
It should be the part of wisdom 

For iiumanity to learn 
That the living friends around us 

Are the ones whom we should cheer; 
Not the cold and silent sleepers, 

Past discernment in the bier. 



There are lips that still are pulsing, 

There are living hearts that beat. 
There are dead ones in the morrow 

Which our voices cannot greet; 
Then give out thy rays of sunshine. 

Speak to-day thy words of cheer. 
Make the friends around thee liappy 

Ere their ears shall cease to hear. 



There is music all around us. 

There's enjoyment all our own; 
Catch and prize it ere the singer 

With his sweet- toned notes has flown 
Y\^ait not for the mournful morrow, 

Which in bitterness may come; 
Prize and show tlie i)leasure given 

Ere the giver's lips are dumb. 



on THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

There are flowers blooming for us, 

There are thorns along the way; 
Leave the thorns and gather roses 

With tlieir fragrance while ye may; 
Sup the nectar and the honey 

That on every hand are found; 
Look not to the doubtful morrow, 

Wherein thorns v/ill oft abound. 

There are visions of the future 

Strewn along life's changing way, 
Yet we know not of the sorrow 

Waiting us from day to day; 
Then enjoy the living present, 

Prize the sunshine ever near; 
Make the most of rays of brightness 

Ere the cloudy skies appear. 

You can do your acts of mercy 

To the living, not the dead; 
You can brighten others' pathway 

Ere their course in life has sped; 
Then be up and nobly doing, 

Make thy life of peerless worth. 
Catch enjoyment and transmit it. 

Be divine upon the earth. 



SIGNIFICANCE OF BLUSTER. 

'Tis worth the observation 

How placid men can be. 
Though steadfast in their purpose 

Opposition's shafts to dree. 
When in the cause of justice 

Conviction makes them strong, 
Wiiile those are prone to bluster 

Who know that they are wrong. 



AND OTREll POEMS. 93 

THE CAT AND THE MOUSE. 

By licedlessness once a too venturesome mouse 

Accidentally fell in a bicker 
Containing humanity's poisonous drink, 

Debauching and ruinous liquor. 

Assistance the sufferer sought from the cat, 

And for it attempted to dicker; 
But eating the rodent was what pussy asked 

For helping it out of the liquor. 

The mouse had the choice to be eaten or drown, 

And floated around growing sicker, 
Till death, it declared, by the jaws of a cat. 

Less horrid than drowning in liquor. 

Intent on a meal pussy sprang to its aid, 
And took the poor mouse from the bicker; 

But when this was done the cheat ran in a hole. 
And left pussy smelling the liquor. 

'* Your promise now keep," said the cat to the mouse; 

But the latter replied with a snicker: 
** Xot much, I am free, and that promise don't count, 

Because it was made when in liquor.'^ 

"Who takes to the still and its product will find 
His brain, like his tongue, growing thicker; 

And all his morality oft will be lost. 
If mingled too freely with liquor. 



94 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

THE HERODS OF TO-DAY. 

A Herod, fearful for Lis tbroue. 

Commanded in his day 
His hireling band in Bethlehem, 

Tlie little babes to slay, 
Begetting mourning in the land, 

Thus drenched in infant gore, 
Of Rachels \veei)ing for their kin, 

Whom they should see no more. 

We shrink with horror from the thought 

Of what that Herod did; 
Yet in our modes of modern life 

Abaddon's form is hid, 
And though we sadly mourn for those 

Whom he hath borne away, 
The slaughter of the innocents 

Goes on from day to day. 

Dame Fashion wields the venomed shafts 

These tender plants to kill, 
While liquor and the cigarette 

Their tieadly mission fill; 
And many modern factories 

Are juggernauts to slay. 
And sickness ignorance bespread 

Out-Herods him to-day. 

A thousand forms of needless death 

Are stalking through the land. 
And Herod, in a modern dress. 

Still issues his command 
In fashion's mandates armed with power 

The race to re-enslave, 
Till Azrael leads to freedom through 

The pathway of the grave. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 9J 

THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

Redolpliiis Jason built a house. 

Magnificent and grand. 
On which lie lavished boundless wealth 

With an unsparing hand. 
Its massive wails were flinty stone, 

Its roof of hardest tile, 
While front and rear the portico 

Made an aniphiprostyle. 

Aluminum instead of wood 

Was used to form the doors. 
While finely tessellated stone 

Made bright mosaic floors. 
In short, the woik was fireproof. 

So stable every way. 
It seemed to Jason and his kin. 

That it Avould last for aye. 

To guard against all accidents 

The house was well insured; 
So Jason thought his happiness 

Had surely been secured. 
But yet a horrid corpse was hid 

Beneath the massive wall. 
And flitting through the rooms at night. 

Its ghost pervaded all. 

Intruding into ev'ry room 

Stalked this unwelcome guest. 
And nowhere in the haunted house 

Was found a place of rest; 
So that, instead of happiness 

AVith joyous day and night. 
The family saw but wretchedness. 

Combined with sad affright. 



96 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Kedolphus found, the story runs, 

Tlie source of all bis grief 
Had been tbat be in early days 

Disposed of murrained beef; 
So people sickened by bis act. 

And many even died, 
And one was buried on the spot 

Which he had beautified. 



This victim of that grievous wrong. 

Though long in his decease. 
On viewing such prosperity 

Oould never be at ease; 
But coming from his grave at night. 

Gave sad, heart-rending moans. 
And filled the house, bought with his blood. 

Throughout with dying groans. 



No purifying cleansed that house 

From ghostly step and thud, 
As in its massive walls was hid 

The price of human blood; 
So many a man hath built a house, 

While in the closet lay 
The skeleton of wrong once done 

Which would not wash away. 



Within the gorgeous palace thus 

Blood often is congealed. 
For back of all the outward show 

The corpse may be concealed; 
And though to cover it one burn 

The incense of a saint. 
Yet its decay, unseen by all, 

Imparts a loathsome taint. 



AND 'I'll Eli POEMS. 97 

Man's liouso, tlie symbol of himself,' 

On suporficial view 
May seem to be magnificent;. 

Yet shabby through and tlirongli. 
Hence structui-es of imposing kind. 

Appealing really grand, 
When tested by the searching winds 

The storm cannot withstand. 

So character is often seen 

In outward form so pure 
It seems to human view the man 

Of heaven was secure. 
When deep within his cankered heart 

An awful secret lay, 
And gnawing conscience told of crime 

Too vile to wash away. 

Let him who reads this lesson right, 

Then keep the soul Avithin 
Free from injustice, wrong and vice. 

And every kind of sin, 
So that in later years of life 

His conscience may not bring, 
Ghost-like, the penalty of vice, 

A deep, abiding sting. 



TO SEE ONE'S SELF. 

In the frailties of our manhood 

Each with the other shares, 
And the way to learn our failings 

Is to tell our neiglibors theirs; 
When they in retribution 

Will seek in ns the same, 
And call to our attention 

Every source of grief and shame. 



98 THt: FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

LOVE IS BLIND. 

When scorning vestal virgin's ire 
Bold Cnpiil stole the sacred fire, 
He placed it where 'twould ever glow 
In maiden beauty here below. 

The woman thus with tact and skill 
Endowed the human heart to thrill. 
In wealth of love will ever shine 
Angelic-like and seem divine. 

For in her grand and peerless worth. 
The grace and elegance of earth 
Blend with the flame of holy love, 
Transplanted from the realm above. 

We worship at the sculptor's shrine. 
Creations of the art divine. 
But life and love a beauty own 
Transcending that produced in stone. 

For love, above all human art, 
AVill paint its visions on the heart, 
And in its sacred precincts hold 
The favored one as purest gold. 

Bedecked with dew, the floral stems 
May sparkle with a thousand gems. 
But brighter than the flowers or dew 
The one beloved appears to view. 

For Venus with her finger-tips, 
Her brush in burnished beauty dips, 
To paint with charms beyond compeer 
The one of all esteemed most dear. 



AND OTUKlt POEMS. 

Eiulowed with all snch cliarms men seem 
To think the maid of whom they dream 
Surpassing in her matchless worth 
All human beings on the earth. 

Thongh frailties that annoy and vex 
Pertain to others of her sex, 
Yet in the one his love has crowned 
No trace of weakness caii be found. 

Thus men will think and always paint 
Their fair enchantress as a saint. 
Above all of the earthly kind, 
A fancy proving love is" blind. 

'Tis true of others, as you see, 
This blinded love, but'not of me. 
For my affianced, mark it well. 
All other women doth excel. 



99 



THE NOBLE. 



Seeking once to find the noble 
In the famous golden age. 

One accosted many people, 
And at last a dry old sage. 

Who in wisdom thus responded, 
*' Yes, I know the thing you seek. 
Which you surely will discover. 
If you list to w^hat I speak. 

'' Would you find the truly noble? 
Seek it by the fevered cot, 
Where a patient, anxious woman 
Strives to ease the sufferer's lot. 



100 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

'^ Find it in tlie true and faithful 

Wife when cursed by drunken man. 
Yet who, in a humble manner, 
Always does the best she can. 

" See it in the trusting mother, 
In the sister's boundless love, 
Which appear in acts so noble 

They seem sent from heaven above. 

*• You can find the truly noble, 
If you fathom woman's heart, 
jFor wiien souls are bowed in anguish 
She will do a noble part/^ 



MONEY WITHOUT BRAINS AN INJURY^ 

Jepthiah Hale, a humble man. 
Divinely formed on God's own plan. 
Not bright indeed in intellect. 
Was made to labor we suspect. 

An nnobtrusive man was Hale, 
With shortage in his dinner pail, 
As all the merchants felt they must 
Decline to give him further trust. 

But yet he mingled with his peers, 
Enjoyed with them the jokes and jeers, 
As pleasant boon com])anions then 
His equals were his fellow men. 

Thus Jep was happy in his way. 
And lived along from day to day 
With men he liked, nor sought the great. 
But those he could appreciate. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 101 

A cliiklless uncle in tlie West, 
A millionaire without bequest, 
Tiien (lied and left old Jep to share 
His foriune ;is a kindred heir. 

No greater change was ever heard 
Than that which then in Jep occurred. 
As he forsook the humble crowds 
And held his head amid the clouds. 

The woman he had vowed to love 

He found himself so far above 

That through divorce he shipped the wife 

Who'd been his mate thus far in life. 

When sacred ties no longer hold 
A human heart so dead and cold 
As thus to break this plighted troth 
Such moneyed monster men should loath. 

Now as befitting his estate 
He sought among the rich and great;, 
With men of culture and of mind 
Alone, companionship to find. 

These gentlemen so wont to scan, 
And take the measure of a man, 
Considered one in brain so poor 
Intruding thus was but a boor. 

These measured men of Jeptha's kind 
By- want of brain and lack of mind, 
Devoid of use except to fleece 
As is their wont the fattest geese. 

Hence Jeptha had companionships 
Unfitted to his many slips, 
And bled so oft, he found the worst 
By money he was only cuised. 



102 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

No longer training with his kind, 
But meeting men of cultured mind^ 
The butt of laugh and ridicule, 
He now appeared a wealthy fool. 

Jep also tried to run the town 
Wherein he lived, which would not down, 
As men of brains, to put it frank, 
Yield not unto a moneyed crank. 

So in the place that was his home 
He could not call two votes his own. 
As brain will rule, and thus debarred 
His fondest wish none would regard. 

Companionships not of his kind, 
In politics considered blind. 
Despised by all for senseless pride. 
This wealthy Jeptha lived and died. 

His happiness had been transformed. 

At losing which he often stormed. 

In brain a pauper and the worse, 

His wealth had proved its power to curse. 

However strange this tale appear. 
The moral should be very clear: 
The surest source of ridicule 
Is money given to a fool. 

And would you profit by the tale, 
Parental love should never fail, 
Tiiy children well to educate. 
Til us fitting them for high estate. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 103 

THE BEST OF SOME THINGS. 

The noblest man 

In God's great plan 
Is he who will persever, 

Throngh boundless love, 

Like that above, 
In deeds that live forever. 

The grandest birth 

Upon the earth 
Is not of rank or fashion, 

But one who shows 

At others' woes 
His love and great compassion. 

The highest claim 

To endless fame. 
Surpassing creed and faction. 

Is found in man, 

Divine in plan, 
As proved by lofty action. 

The greatest wealth, 

Debarring health, 
Which moi-tals can inherit. 

Produces deeds 

Surpassing creeds 
In grand and peerless merit. 

The noblest craft 

Will well engraft 
On work the art of giving. 

And ever find 

The soul inclined 
To higher types of living. 

The highest post 
That men can boast, 
Opplete with matchless beauty, 



1C4 THE FRAILTIES OF EUMANITf 

Is where tliey stand 
At God's command 
And fearless do their dutji 

The noblest course 

Will have its source 
In streams of living watei^ 

Of love to run 

And ever cun 
The world away from slaughter. 

The grandest rule 

To learn in school 
Is every man's a brother. 

And ahvays true 

To never do 
Injustice to another. 

The truest belle 

Who would excel 
Will ever fail to handle. 

In act or word, 

Wherever heard, 
A piece of filthy scandal. 

The sweetest wife 

To have in life 
May not be versed in science. 

But can impart 

To man a heart 
In royal soul alliance. 

The ricliest dress, 

One must confess. 
Is not of silk or satin. 

But iiolds a form 

Of perfect norm, 
Unlearned or versed in Latin. 



AND OTUER POEMS. 105 

Tlie noblest lodge 

Will never dodge 
Its bonds and claims fraternal, 

But always seek 

To help the weak, 
And do it hodiernal. 

The best faquir 

Is not the seer, 
Or one who is ascetic. 

But he who proves 

His spirit moves 
With sorrow sympathetic. 

The truest strife 

To have in life 
Is found in noble doing, 

Surpassing men 

In action when 
The earth with love they're strewing. 

The noblest faith, 

Above the wraith 
Of spirits often mirksome. 

Will only ask 

To do its task. 
However hard and irksome. 

The Godlike church 

Will ever search 
For ways to save a brother. 

And prove its creed 

In time of need 
By aiding one another. 

The only man 
Who ever can 
Become a proper pastor 



106 ^SE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Will always work 
Within the kirk 
As servant of the Master. 

The noblest soul 

Will find its goal 
In love and deeds fraternal. 

And when at last 

The earth is past. 
Will go to life eternal. 



GETTING mSUEED. 

A life insurance man came round. 

Said Josh, the other day, 
And talked about the company 

Which after death should pay 
My widow handsome sums ,of cash 

To get another man, 
And made the thing appear so bright 

I thought rd try the plan. 

He asked me questions many a one 

Of how my life was spent; 
How many relatives I had, 

And how my business went; 
Just who 1 was, and then my age; 

How old I was at birth, 
And how my parents knew ^twas I 

Appearing on the earth. 

He asked if 1 knew how to vote 

Repub. or Democrat, 
And lis to brains he'd like to know 

The number of my hat; 
And was I blind, deformed, or deaf; 

And could I speak by rule. 
Or did I ever lose my sense. 

And turn into a fool. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 107 

If ipecac I'd ever liad, 

Or gout, or tremens blue. 
Or panted from a want of breath, 

And died of palsy too; 
And were my parents still alive. 

Or were they ever born; 
And if I took my lager beer. 

Or tumbled to a horn. 



And was I married, or a bach 

AVithout a girl in view; 
Or did my babies cry at night 

With pains of colic too; 
How many brotliers I had had, 

And sisters, what a shame! 
Tiiat he should want to know of each 

The age and sex and name. 



When he had pumped me clearly dry, 

Though mucii against my will, 
He kept on pumping all the same. 

And made me answer still; 
Though when I'd told him all I knew, 

And other things I guessed, 
He shut his trap and took me to 

A doctor for the rest. 



The latter asked still stranger things, 

Then peeled me off and went 
For my internal revenues, 

And soon with fury sent 
A rasping-jack clear down my back. 

Next thumped me to a jell, 
Tlien tied me with a string, aiul made 

Me sneeze and cotigh and yell. 



108 THE FMAILTIES OF HIIMANITY 

He felt my pulse and tried my teeth. 

And punched my liver too; 
Then in his ears with stethoscope 

He nearly bored me through. 
While as an ohl pulf adder can 

He tlionght I could inflate 
My body with a breadth of beam 

Beyond the usual state. 



And when he'd got enough of this 

He said that I would do; 
You bet I was a bappy man 

To find that I was through; 
And should you wish to be insured 

Why learn the way from me. 
So you may know what to expect. 

And not be found at sea. 



jli\d now, my friends, one pjirting word. 

For, when 1 fiml my rest, 
That same insurance man will be 

My widow's brightest guest; 
When others come with bills to pay^ 

And draw what is their due, 
He'll come again with joyful cheer. 

And bring her money too. 



Although it takes a little cash 

To carry on the thing, 
I don't begi'udge a sitigle cent. 

For joy 'twill surely bring; 
The dearest one on earth to me. 

My wife, when sorely tried. 
Will bless me that I thought of iier, 

3-nu SitW her vvants su[>plied. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 109 

TO x\ SABBA.TH SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT. 

WIiGii tiny twigs first come to light. 
And burst upon tlie luiman sight, 
Tliey arc so young and tender still 
One crooks or bends tlieni as he will. 

E'en so it seems tlie human mind 
May be in youth to God inclined. 
Or borne with swiftest strides along 
Far down the way of sin and wrong. 

The children, whom we often meet 
As little Arabs on the street, 
May some day be the men of state. 
Of lowest rank, or nobly great. 

Endowed with souls to live for aye, 
They should be taught in wisdom's way. 
That they may gain the better part. 
That priceless gem, a noble heart. 

'Tis thine the task their sonls to win 
Away from vice and shame and sin, 
And show tjiem iiow by daily strife 
To reach the highest type of life. 

And as this work you've nobly done, 
A way into our hearts you've won, 
And hence this tribute to your worth 
We give for teaching man's new birth. 

For in the virtue that controls 
Thy life insj)ired with zeal for souls. 
We see the Master's spirit leads 
Your heart to pure, unselfish deeds. 



1 1 TUI£ FRA IL TIES OF HUMANITY 

Hence wlieii tliy days on earth are o'er, 
Eeoeived upon the mystic shore, 
As thy reward to ever shine 
A crown of glory shall be thine. 

For to that future heaven of rest, 
Allied with those supremely blest 
In all that nobleness achieves. 
You'll go at last with garnered sheaves. 



BEUNION OF THE BLUE AND GRAY. 

At Gettysburg, July 3, 1887. 

Four and twenty years have vanished. 

Like tlie shooting stars of night. 
Since on Gettysburg's round hilltops 

Marshaled legions stood in fight; 
When two hundred thousand heroes. 

Some in Blue and some in Gray, 
With the fury of the tempest. 

Met in battle's stern array. 

Three long days of deadly conflict. 

Filled tlie earth with woe and pain. 
When it seemed, by flight so rapid. 

Spirits jostled spirits slain; 
As with measured tread those armies. 

Heeding not the cannon's breath. 
Kept the step to weirdest music, 

Khythmic with the dance of death. 

There the high tide of rebellion. 

Reached amid the rush and roar 
Of contending hosts in battle, 

Broke like billows on the shore. 
Where that line of Union heroes 

Stood knee-deep in death and blood, 
Dying by tlieir loyal standards. 

Dashing back the rebel flood. 



AND OTHER POEMS. HI 

Oil that liigli tide Soutlierii lieroes 

Glory^s bright refulgence slied. 
Where, as cogent proofs of valor, 

liose tlie ghastly lieaps of dead; 
And, as backward rolled their armies. 

Hearts in Gray were filled with gloom 
When they saw the downward marching 

Of rebellion to its doom. 



For the end of their retreating, 

Which at Gettysburg began, 
Never ceased till Appomattox 

Stood in glory grandly won; 
And the ensign of the Union, 

From the lakes unto the sea, 
Floated o'er a land united, 

And a people truly free. 

Four and twenty years have faded. 

And behold another scene. 
Not of brother fighting brother. 

But of happiness serene; 
When again those mighty armies. 

Both in Gray and Union Blue, 
Meet around that famous hamlet. 

Ties of friendship to renew. 

O! the grandeur of their meeting 

In fraternal bonds anew. 
Pledging, where they stood in carnage. 

Brotherhood forever true; 
Heaven itself no brighter vision 

E'er unrolls to mortal sight, 
And the angels seem rejoicing 

Over deeds so pure and bright. 



112 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Kome may point her march of triumph, 

When the captives thronged her car. 
And the glory of his pageant 

Marlced tlie victor in her war; 
But this nation shows a grander 

Scene than came to ancient days. 
For our once contending foemen 

Meet to sound each others' praise. 



Vanquished meeting with the victors, 

Brothers standing hand in hand, 
Elhows touch in moving column, 

Blue and Gray have but one land; 
Kebel yells from Mississippi, 

Symbol of a foeman's vow, 
Answer cheers from Pennsylvania, 

Both are for the Union now. 



Thus methinks of peace the victory 

Grander is than thjit of war, 
As, with heart to heart responding. 

Brethren gather from afar, 
And in pride they bear our ensign. 

As a beacon full of light. 
Which their fathers nobly dying, 

Once upheld in valiant fight. 



Of this meeting see the promise 

In the prophets' olden books, 
Wlien the spears be turned to plowshares. 

And the swords to pruning hooks; 
For this grand, fraternal greeting 

Echoes friendship o'er and o'er. 
And foretells when, in the future, 

Nations shall learn war no more. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 113 

And it says that for our country, 

Come whatever woe or weal, 
Bine and Gray in common honor 

Pledge a love that's deep and real; 
For, in loyalty surpassing, 

Hearts grow nearer day by day. 
Swearing that our nation's ensign 

Shall float proudly on for aye. 



JUDGE NOT. 

As men of regal, lofty worth 

Have gained an honored name and station 
By noble lives npon the eartli. 

Yet sometimes yield to strong temptation; 
Hence charity belongs to all, 

And mercy should the soul illumine 
With kindness for the ones who fall. 

When falling only proves them human. 

The man who fancies he is strong. 

And able to resist temptation. 
Quite often fails of doing wrong 

And sinking in base degradation; 
Not near so much by manly foi-ce 

As that from vice he's been exempted^ 
And in the shaping of liis course, 

Like those who fell, has not been tempted. 

The boy who can endure the taunt 

Of city Arab or street gamin, 
And men who suffer from the want 

Of clothing, hunger, food or famine. 
And all who keep their honor bright 

When bravely facing want and dangers. 
Evince a lofty sense of right. 

To which the rich are often strangers. 



114 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

The potent promptings of the heart. 

And trials that beset a brother. 
We never see, but view the part 

Of outward conduct in another; 
So that to our contracted sight 

Some acts appear both vile and shameless. 
Which, viewed in broader, truthful light, 

In noble purpose may be blameless. 



And e'en the thing which seems to mar, 

Divinely judged, when life is ended, 
May be proclaimed an honored scar, 

Received where strife and triumph blended; 
While tlios9 who seem depraved and base. 

To our imperfect, narrow vision, 
God may esteem the sons of grace. 

In merit meet for joys elysian. 



would we had the power bizarre 

To see with that divine precision 
Our fellow-beings as they are. 

And not with our constricted vision; 
How those we censure might appear 

In spirit pure, devout and moral. 
And some esteemed unworthy here 

Be recompensed with bays and laurel. 



The strongest, most convincing chain 

Of circumstances ever woven 
To stamp with an enduring stain 

A human being's life as cloven. 
May be of innocence the blight, 

A proof that man is narrow-minded. 
And in his lack of mental sight. 

Construing facts, is often blinded. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 115 

A living hero in Marseilles, 

Guyon is called the sordid miser, 
Yet o'er his tomb the town bewails 

In him her aqueduct ])rovisor; 
With love and honor riclily due 

To one who, scorning base decrial, 
Had ivept his purpose firm and true 

To help the race through self-denial. 



A Staszic slandered in his day, 

Witli purpose to the future reaching, 
Hath left results that far outweigli 

The common type of moral teaching; 
And Poland weeps in pride for him, 

Whose testament gave serfdom voices. 
With luster that no age should dim 

Since freedom in his name rejoices. 



Some ethel souls, who led the way 

To consecrated Christian giving, 
And taught mankind from day to day 

The highest type of noble living. 
Were first misjudged and then denied 

The right of thought, which freedom charters. 
As shown in every homicide. 

Enforced to make the host of martyrs. 



E'en He who taught '^Good will on earth," 

The ethel paths of peace pursuing. 
And through his truths of peerless worth 

Hath led the race in noble doing. 
Was deemed seditious to his land. 

Deserving only malediction. 
And by the rul^-'s stern command 

Was doomed to death by crucifixion. 



116 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Too oft the world has been inclined 

No new-born truth to quickly swallow. 
And unprogressive lacks the mind 

Its thinkers in reforms to follow. 
Hence those, who lead the van of thought 

From mental pinnacle or steeple, 
Are deemed the cranks for Mors onslaught 

By self-conceited, stagnant people. 

Judge not. You cannot here be just. 

And may bestow on true endeavor 
A censure, like a dagger's thrust . 

That cuts and pains and wrongs forever. 
And men of honest, noble aim, 
* May meet your scornful detestation 
While leading lives that really claim 
The highest type of veneration. 



EVIL SPEAKING. 

Good Elder Jacobs as a man 
Possessed a very striking plan 
Of giving needed dry reproof. 
And teaching men to tell the truth; 
So when the sisters spoke of one 
As strangest person 'neath the sun. 
Into the room the elder came 
And found a way to check the same. 

He said, ^^ She's strange beyond compeer. 
And what to many may seem queer, 
In fact she is so very weak 
As ill of others not to speak; 
For as a Oliristian, grand and true. 
She guards her tongue discreetly too. 
And never would a friend defame. 
Or bring reproach upon his name.'* 



AND OTHER POEMS. 117 

Keproof like that most persons need. 
And better far if all should heed, 
And guard their lips lest they defame 
Some other person's spotless name; 
Since envy aims its poison dart 
At those who are most puie in heart, 
AVhen falsehood would a shadow cast 
On those above its power to blast. 

The Christian rule says to proclaim 
The faults against another's name. 
Thus seeking malice to impart, 
But shows tlie vileness cf tiie heart; 
And one who stoops to such an act 
Thereby degrades himself; in fact. 
By doing what is base 
He only points his own disgrace. 

Some persons, whom we truly think 
Would from disgraceful lying shrink, 
And scorn to do an act that's vile. 
Will still the name of friends defile. 
And even with base falsehood tinge 
The words they use to sear and singe 
And blight the lives of those they meet. 
And as their friends are glad to greet. 

As thistle seeds by children strewn. 

And by the winds so v/idely borne 

Tiiat none can follow in their track 

To biing the fleeting rovers back, 

So no one can undo what's done 

By slander's vile, corrupting tongue; 

Unjustly ruined by its blight 

Man's hopes lie crushed in darkest night. 



118 THE FRAILTIES OF HIIMANITT 

By cutting throats with vvhispVings base 
Man often does himself disgrace. 
When envy seeks to raise a name 
By ruining another's fame; 
Aiul often those prone so to speak 
Are liypoci'ites who only seek 
By blighting thus another's weal 
Their own misdoing to conceal. 

The tongue that is so evil starred 
Appears with walls securely bari'ed. 
As by the teeth and lips shut in 
^Twould seem beyond its power to sin; 
Yet often still it comes about 
The mouth is opened widely out. 
And tongues are robbed of their defense 
To speak at other men's expense. 

Take as your guide the Cliristian way. 
And learn this precept to obey: 
If others' faults appear in truth 
Deserving even of reproof, 
In secret tell the erring one 
About the wrong which he hath done^, 
And never let your tongue disgrace 
Yourself by doing what is base. 



WORDS. 



Words are the soul's ambassadors 
On many missions sent, 

Which in their varied ranges 
Fulfilled the mind's intent. 

Words are the bolts of lightning 
From truth's own Galling gun. 

Where error shall be vanquished 
And wrong shall be undone. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 119 

Words are in all the conflicts 

Of truth and falsehood seen. 
Each army's ammunition, 

The furnished magazine. 

Words are the ships of progress 

That sweep the human kind. 
Forever on upholding 

The commerce of the mind. 

Words are in soul communion 

The current mental coin, 
With power in thought exchanges 

All lands as one to join. 

Words are the tools of science. 
Which, peerless in its worth. 
As learning's hrilliant sunshine 
• Irradiates the earth. 

Words are the stars of midnight, 

AVith power to unroll 
New glories in the heavens, 

Ennobling to the soul. 

Words are the tongue-coined caskets. 

With primal truths inwrought, 
Of prehistoric ages, 

The burial-grounds of thought. 

Words are the lingual fossils. 

The megatheres of mind. 
Within their roots enclosing 

The footprints of mankind. 

Words, through the learning buried 

In roots and primitives, 
Are, to the toiling student. 

The crowns Sandalphon gives. 



120 THE FRAILUES OF HUMANITY 

Words, like the weights and measures 
Used in exchanging grain. 

Are in the works of authors 
The measures of the brain. 

Words in diplomatism 

Are missiles sent afar. 
The weapons of the statesman 

In waging paper war. 

Words are to evildoers ^ 

The sword of Damocles, 
As through the courts of justice 

Are issued stern decrees. 

Words are the wheels of progress 
Which bear the race along 

On higher planes of living. 
To leave behind the wrong. 

Words are the steps to greatness. 
Once trod by all the wise. 

In steady new attainments. 
As Alps on Alps arise. 

Words are, to earnest workers. 
Who in this earthly strife 

Attain immortal honors, 
The monuments of life. 

Words are the aids to freedom. 

The Paladins of right. 
That fire the soul with ardor 

For stern and deadly fight. 

Words are the tools of slander 
With power to barb the dart. 

And basely plaut its dagger 
Deep in the human heart. 



AND OTHElt POEMS. 1J>1 

Words are tlie race Megaera, 

Or Eriniiys of f.ite, 
Tluit follow like Alecto 

The objects of tbeir hate. 

Words are witli power of torture 

A car of Juggernaut; 
Or Abderite of laughter, 

Who pulls his merry-thought. 

Words are the shafts of Momus, 

All barbed iu ridicule; 
Or touched with commendation. 

The race in love to school. 

Words are in human folly 

The seeds producing fruit. 
As often blent with falsehood 

They show the cloven foot. 

Words are the bonds of pleasure 

Our paths on earth to cheer, 
And make a bed of roses 

To mortals dwelling here. 

Words paint the brilliant future, 

Wlien all the earth shall ring 
With praises of Jehovah, 

And love of man be king. 

Words are for one's salvation. 

And wondrous growth in grace. 
As mentors to tlie spirit, 

The life-blood of the race. 

Words may be rays of sunshine 

To those beside the tomb. 
The lamp of an Aladdin 

To light the hearts in gloom. 



122 THE FRAIL TIBS OF HUM A N1T7 

Words fire the bread of friend sliip. 
And love tiie souvenir. 

The source of all enjoyment 
To. man in his career. 

Words are the lover's tokens 
To one bewitching fair. 

That asks the Amaryllis 
Her suitor's lot to share. 

Words are the voice of music. 
Like some sweet philomel, 

That sends its notes of gladness 
Enraptured joys to tell. 

Words are the wings of wisdom, 
The Mercuries of right, 

Or Pegasi of genius 
In Asmodeus flight. 

Words are Hesperian gardens 
O'erhung with golden fruits, 

Where men of steadfast purpose 
May drink from living puits. 

Words are electric flashes 
That thrill the heart of man. 

And rouse the soul in action 
To do the best it can. 

Words are as rich as Croesus 
With power to sway mankind, 

And lift the race to culture. 
Ennobling to the mind. 

Harsh words, like swift Camilla, 

So rapid on the wing, 
May leave their trail behind them 

In many a painful sting. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 123 

Kind words may follow after, 

Yet to the hearts that ache 
May never in their swiftness 

The evil overtake. 

Hence we should see the wisdom 

Of faithfulness to right, 
As thoughtless words once spoken 

Have endless power to blight. 

For in the varied changes 

Of life upon the earth, 
Words are the strongest agents 

To which the world gives birth. 

Eternal in existence, 

The Durandals of power. 
Words are to human beings 

Jehovah's priceless dower. 

Which on the earth abiding 

Their richness will display. 
In soul communion fruitage 

For ever and for aye. 



THANKSGIVING. 

Our pilgrim fathers, who forsook 

The old world for the new, 
Hath started what should ever live- 

Tliis custom, gnmd and true; 
As on one day within the year. 

In gratitude and love, 
AVe lift our hearts in thankfulness 

To him who reigns above. 



124 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANll T 

Oft thonglitlessly we tread life's way, 

AVhen everything is briglit, 
Forgetting wliat we owe to liim 

AVho is the source of light; 
But when disease our bodies rack 

In anguish and in pain, 
Our hearts will thrill with gratitude 

As health returns again. 



If cannon thunder in the land, 

And drench the earth with gore, 
^Tis then we pray to God for peace. 

And bless him when 'tis o'er; 
But if the years in rolling round 

From war shall leave us free. 
His constant guiding care in this 

We often fail to see. 



In all things should we here below 

Discern our Father's hand. 
That showers blessings I'ichly down 

On us and on our laiul; 
Our numbered hairs are in his care^ 

He gives what seemeth best; 
Our country by his guidance too. 

With peace is truly blest. 



Then recognize the hand that leads 

Along life's changing way, 
And fills the cup of joy for us, 

Transforming night to day; 
For when our sky by clouds o'ercast 

Seems gloomy, dark and drear. 
At God's behest the sunshine, bright 

With glory, will appear. 



AND OTUER POEMIS. 125 

LET THE DAYLIGHT IN. 

Along life's rugged pathway, 

If to brooding one's inclined, 
This truth, in uU its bearing. 

It is well to bear in mind: 
No day is ever so gloomy. 

But a darker might have been; 
No sorrow's ever so fearful. 

But a worse might enter in. • 

Though crosses often heavy 

Supervene along thy way. 
Yet think of others' trials. 

And remember, day by day. 
No lot is ever so cheeriess. 

But a worse God might assign; 
No path is ever so thorny. 

But a harsher might be thine. 

Behind the clouds of darkness. 

When appearing most malign. 
The sun in bright refulgence 

Never yet has ceased to shine; 
And rays of beauteous splendor 

Through the mistic clouds will break. 
To light with heavenly comfort 

All the weary hearts that ache. 

Amid thy darkest troubles. 

When the soul seems nigh undone. 
Beyond tlie clouds of sorrow 

Then belioM the shining sun. 
Whose I'ays of glorious comfort 

Are to happiness akin. 
And on thy gloomiest sorrow 

Always let the daylight in. 



126 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

GOING HOME. 

Lines Suggested by the Death of M. Early, of 
Detroit, Michigan. 

Cast aside those sable garments; 

Black is nnbecomiiig here. 
There's lio sliade or tint of sadness 

Suited to a good man's bier. 

From his many years of labor, 
Leaving scenes of earthly strife, 

Summoned by his father's message. 
This man goes to endless life. 

Through a }>ath of many trials, 
From our father's house we roam; 

On this earth Ave're only strangers — 
Death is our returning home. 

Though we mourn for friends departed, 
Yet the welcome truth we own: 

There's no cause for grief or sadness 
In the thought of going home. 

Prodigals and pilgrims truly. 
Here on earth for years we roam, 

Shrinkingdeath as some dread monster. 
When 'tis only going home. 

Storms and tempests are around us. 
Yet a father's heart must yearn 

For his children as they wander 
Till death bids us to return. 

Sickness, trouble, pain, and sorrow, 

All of earthly life annoy. 
When one sleeps to wake in glory. 

It should be a time of joy. 



AND OTllEU POEMS. 127 

Put away those sable garments — 

Death is not a monster drear. 
But translation home to heaven, 

Through the pathway of the bier. 



THE EARTH TRANSFORMED. 

Within a dream my fancy once 

Serenely bore me on. 
To view this earth so changed it seemed 

That every vice was gone. 
Society was then transformed. 

And ceased its sham parade. 
As none were counted gentlemen 

With tailor bills unpaid. 



Then envy, jealousy, and strife 

No longer held their sway, 
But love and human brotherhood 

Produced millennial day. 
No woman suffered direful want, 

Or humbly begged for aid. 
Since no man was a gentleman 

With washing bills unpaid. 



As love and true fraternity 

Made everything serene. 
No shoddy, sham aristocrats 

Appeared to mar the scene; 
Nor women dressed in gaudy silk 

Unpaid for were arrayed, 
As none could rank as ladies there 

With sewing bills unpaid. 



128 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Injustice tluis in every form 

From earth had passed away. 
And in its place equality 

In righteousness held sway. 
Hence no one died in abject want, 

Or lived in need of aid, 
Since earth contained enongh for all 

When honest debts were paid. 



The real earmarks of snobbery, 

The cold and stony stare, 
And women wedding foreign dudes. 

Were never witnessed there. 
Nor duel code allowed a man 

To take another's life, 
But made him not a gentleman 

For eating with his knife. 



The mothers from receptions too. 

Society relieved. 
That left for them no time in which 

Their children were received; 
Hence no attractions were so great 

Which others could employ. 
As every family circle found 

At home their truest joy. 



When error thus in all its forms 

No longer could be found, 
But people proved by deeds of love 

That righteousness was crowned. 
The world appeared a paradise 

To wrong no longer given. 
But gave to mortals everywhere 

A foretaste here of heaven. 



AND OTHER POKMH. 129 

HUMILITAS ELATA ERIT. 

Though man in the fleali to misconduct is prone. 

And each lieir of Ailarn luis faults of his own. 

Yet nobleness veiled in humility's guise 

In acts that are ethel the race deifies; 

And as the Eternal, discerning aright. 

In spirits of meekness will find a delight, 

So those who are humble, though sometimes at fault, 

Eor motives of purity God will exalt. 



CHOOSING A LOVE BOUQUET. 

I'm culling now with pleasure 

A bright bouquet for you. 
And choose a passion flower. 

Type of devotion true; 
And send along a dahlia 

To say forever thine, 
Combining with a jonquil 

In hope that you'll be mine. 

By rosebuds Vm confessing, 

When tongue is strangely mutO;, 
And fine mimosas showing 

My heart's a broken lute; 
While Asian Amaranth us 

Its story shall repeat. 
And say my love lies bleeding 

At beauty's graceful feet. 

Geraniums, for color 

On rose my choice shall fall. 
As others may be lovely. 

Yet you exceed them all; 
And snowballs saying virtue 

Doth cluster round thee now. 
While language of the holly 

Is think upon thy vow. 



130 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

V\\ show by fine peach blossoms 

That here I Wx my choice. 
And hope by love retiiriiing 

You'll bid my lieart rejoice; 
And next by whitest lilies 

I'll typify thy worth, 
And say that you are looking 

By far too pure for earth. 



And then I'll send a speedwell 

Engraven with thy name. 
For deatliless when 'tis kindled 

True love's a holy flame; 
While ivy in affections 

Of females bears a part. 
And says in floral language 

I've found one truthful heart. 



This bay will show affection 

Which changes but with death. 
And bids us to be faithful 

Until life's latest breath; 
While pink, a single red one. 

Tells what the heart can keep, 
As love both true and holy 

Dwells in its fountain deep. 



Unchanging arbor vitae 

Is like my love for thee, 
Whose type the everlasting 

Guaphalium si i all be; 
Acacias may in friendship 

Their sweetest fragrance rise, 
But I will send Acanthus 

Indissoluble ties. 



AND OTIIini POimS. 131 

May orange flowers biidal 

Festivity soon show, 
Since tliy unconscious beauty 

llath set my heart aglow; 
Hence in these graceful flowers 

Atfection makes its plea, 
As every one selected 

Attests mv Jove for thee. 



THE PROTECTOIIATE FROM VICE. 

To human eyes some men appear. 

By lofty heights attained, 
As chosen leaders of the race 

To noble work ordained; 
And yet such men are seen to fall 

Because the fount within 
Is full of vile, debauching thought, 

Productive here of sin. 

1^0 greater error could be made. 

Or more with danger fraught. 
Than harboring within the mind 

A vile and evil thought, 
That demon-like from every man 

His highest hopes may proll. 
And leave him stramied ere he learns 

Our thoughts our lives control. 

As birds of bi-illiant plumage oft 

Their glory will display, 
While filthy jiarasites within 

Are eating life away; 
So oft beneath the richest garb, 

In beauty's magic form. 
The soul-destroying parasites 

Of evil thoughts may swarm. 



132 TUli: FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Tliongli some may think the soul immured 

In bodies may be derned, 
Yet ^tis a truth tliat everywhere, 

The wisest men have learned; 
Tl)e casket may be beautiful, 

And faultless in its preen, 
Yet thoughtless jokes and acts reveal 

A heart that is obscene. 



By nature's mode in outer dress 

Kich beauties are concealed; 
E'en thus in homely m.ussel shells 

Pearls surely are revealed, 
And from the darkest caves of earth 

The choicest gems are mined; 
So in ill-fashioned bodies oft 

The hearts of gold we find. 

And when despite the outer garb. 

Serenely there amid 
Ungainly gait and homely form 

A royal soul is hid; 
It, through the actions nobly done 

In making others blest, 
In varied ways without intent, 

Its presence will attest. 

For mirrored from the heart within. 

Its secrets to disclose, 
In divers ways, the hidden thought 

To outer action grows; 
And body-like with myriad pores 

From every dark recess, 
A thousand voices in the soul 

Its wishes will express. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 133 

What others thijik iiulnces men 

To make themselves appear 
Unblemished in their open acts. 

And rigidly austere; 
Yet stripped of hypocritic cunt 

Beyond the touch of guile, 
Unguarded actions often show 

The soul within is vile. 

Deceptive masks may cover np 

A heart to disobey, 
But yet in time the outer acts 

The inner man betray; 
Hence far above all outward show. 

Which cannot long endure. 
Is that protectorate from vice, 

A heart divinely pure. 



ACTION EVERYWHERE. 

Life is action, life is motion. 
Moving creatures only thrive; 

Both the land and briny ocean 
Are with myriad forms alive. 

Movement reigns throughout creation 
To the outmost bounds of space, 

Whereby worlds in perturbation 
God's own workmanship we trace. 

Rays of sunshine ever changing, 
Like the worlds that are in need 

Of their potent rearranging, 
On their mission swiftly speed. 

Heat by mild evaporation 

Ever raises from the sea 
Clouds that by precipitation 

Are refreshing hill and lea. 



134 TBE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Kcigiiig winds, that rouse the ocean 
Till its angry billows leap 

Like a fury in commotion. 
Only purify the deep. 

Air is purified by sigliing, 
Tempests and the hurricane. 

Cyclones and tornadoes flying 
With destruction in their train. 

Living streams have running water 
From the center to the brink, 

Stagnant ponds are full of slaughter 
And unfit for human drink. 

E'en the atom hath its circle. 
Bringing motion out of force. 

Like the wife with claims novercal^ 
Or a planet in its course. 

From the tiny cotyledon. 
That exhibits herbal birth, 

Sap ascending makes an Eden 
Universal on the earth. 

^Tis its power forms the fucus. 
And in cellules doth instil 

Colors from an ochroleucous 
To a white or chlorophyll. 

Hearts are beating, veins are coursing 
Full of changing streams of blood. 

Wasted tissue reinforcing 
With the life-renewing flood. 

Living forms have changing matter. 
Lifeless ones but pass away, 

As the rest within the latter 
Is the signal for decay. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 135 

Life is ever effervescent 

Till our course on earth is run. 
Corpses only are quiescent. 

Telling that the souTs undone. 

Perfect rest with life is never. 

Even when we are asleep; 
Change is going on forever. 

Death alone can silence keep. 

Even in decomposition 

There are living forms that play. 
For the body's demolition, 

Roles to bring about decay. 

Thus the world is in commotion, 

Action reigning every wiiere, 
And the man of tiiie devotion 

Finds his own allotted share. 

Duty summons souls to action; 

Not to idle life away. 
A^irtue calls to benefaction; 

Not to vain, inert decay. 

Duty calls for earnest laboi-; 

There is here no place for rest. 
Every one should help his neighbor; 

Work alone is truly blest. 

Yet within this world of action, 

Mummy-like in stiffened pride. 
Souls may undergo contraction. 

And be very dignified. 

Dignity that marks refinement. 

By perversion often can 
Cover up the non-alignment 

Of a soul with work for man. 



i36 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Dignity is then quiescence, 
Like a body that is dead; 

Life is like the phosphorescence 
Which the Noctiluca shed. 

Dignified to petrifaction 

Come such fossil souls to view. 

While replete with earnest action 
Shine the hearts forever true. 

Dignity in churches ever 
May a luster seem to shed. 

Yet betray by lost endeavor 
That the soul within is dead. 

Death attested by the shirking 

Of the claims that they should meet, 

Kever knowing, in their working, 
Brothers whom they ought to greet. 

Churches that by consecration 
In God's spirit have their root, 

Show results of supplication 

In their sheaves of garnered fruit. 

For the spirit thus supernal 
AVill, in love of man divine. 

With fruit-bearing deeds fraternal. 
All their acts with God align. 



THE SENTINEL OF THE SOUL. 

As bovine herds in Mexico, 

With bodies past the nape 
In mud interred sagaciously, 

From insects to escape, 
Have their commander at his post 

As guard against dread foes 



AND OTHER POEMS. 137 

In Marangouins who essay 

To reach the mam mars nose; 
So men their bodies may inimure 

Within the cloistered walls. 
Yet there may find the secret thought 

Producing sinful falls, 
Unless against the foes that swarm 

Unseen as scent of nard. 
About the soul God's spirit stands. 

Its avenues to guard. 



THE WAY TO SUCCESS. 

Pizarro stood upon tlie sand 
Beside his cliosen, faithful band. 
And as he slowly forward paced 
A line upon the earth he traced. 

'^ Beyond," he said, *Mie fields of gold 
W^hich may be yours, if warriors bold; 
Behind is ruin and dismay. 
Each one may now select his way.'' 

Then stepping o'er that line in sand 
He turned and thus addressed his band: 
'* Eor me you see the die is cast, 
I'll go ahead while life shall last." 

Without a thought of turning back 
His men all followed in his track, 
Tlius designating they would go 
Defiantly against the foe. 

Sublime and grand the wonders wrought. 
The dangers braved and battles fought. 
Till finally their longing eyes 
By conquest saw Peru their prize. 



138 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

'Tis always thus in life> we think, 
The men who will from danger shrink 
No glorious deeds have ever done, 
The brave alone have victories won. 

Decision is the thing man needs 
To lead him up to valiant deeds, 
As trembling cowards never press 
AVith vigor on to reach success. 

The men, who standing idly by 
But wait for fortune to draw nigh. 
Will wait until life's fleeting breath 
Shall leave them sleeping cold in death. 

Though others are disposed to shirk, 

The hero rises to the work. 

And first deciding wliat to do 

With courage then will drive it through. 

Success one cannot fail to win 
Who in this spirit doth begin, 
And then but press with firmness on 
Until all opposition's gone. 

Art thou to noble deeds inclined? 
Attain the power of valiant mind. 
First choose the work you wish to do, 
Then to thyself prove grandly true. 



TRUE POLITENESS. 

In a car full of men on its way down the street 

Came an invalid lady in need of a seat; 

Yet the passengers tiiere, though in dress recherche. 

No heed to the woman seemed ready to pay. 

Till attracted by features so pale and so wan 

A poorly clad vvorkingman beckoned her on 



AND OTUER POEMS. 139 

To the eud of the cur, where he rose in his phice 

And offered his seat with the manliest grace, 

And said, as she came to his place from afar, 

'•' It would seem that no gentlemen lide on this car." 

Said she, *' You mistake, as the act you have done 

Evinces the fact there is certainly one." 



MAMMA'S CROSS TO-DAY. 

Quite peevishly a little girl, 

AVhen summoned from her play, 

Struck by her mother's altered tone. 
Said ''Mamma's cross to-day." 

" If mamma's cross you should be good 
And helpful every way, 
Yet learn instead of being cross 
That mamma's sick to day." 

Thus spake the mother, and the child 

Then hastened to obey 
Her every wish because she said, 
*' My mamma's sick to-day." 

That child's example so sublime 
Should teach the older men. 

That when their friends nre cross or ill 
To be the better then. 

It was on its exalted height. 
So Godlike, grand, and true, 

That it may teach the highest course 
For mortals to pursue. 

When angry words from others fall 

In harshness on thy ear. 
Do not respond in kind, but let 

Thy nobler self appear. 



140 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITr 

. ENVY OR JEALOUSY. 

A bird of fine plumage, both brilliant and gay, 
Was singing along in the merriest way, 
When an envious owl overheard tlie refrain, 
And said to the bird, '' You are haughty and vain; 
I hate you as others most surely should do, 
And never could fathom the love borne for yon." 
Said the bird, '' Neighbor owl, let your jealousy pass, 
And to learn why you're hated just look in the glas§." 

Those words would be wisdom for all men to hear. 
For whenever one jealous and loveless appear. 
And thus' move along in his pathway on earth. 
He should find in himself is the lack of true worth; 
Then in life's rugged path would you learn how to rise, 
Not envy nor jealousy brings one the prize; 
But bury these ever as onward you pass, 
Detecting your faults by a look in the glass. 



ANCESTRAL PRIDE. 

Like the peacock that's strutting o'er the spread of his 

tail. 
Although after a shower all its glory will fail, 
So is man in his folly, when recalling a ghost. 
Even those who are worthless will of pedigrees boast. 



EFFECTUAL PRAYER. 

When once a Scotchman broke a limb. 
His neighbors met to pray for him. 
That from affliction tried and sore, 
God might the man to health restore. 

And there beside the suiferer's cot 
They asked of God to e;ise his lot, 
With souls in earnest effort wrung, 
While in between the hymns were sung. 



t( 



AND OTllKll POEMS. 141 

While thus engaged was lieard a knock, 
Which gave to all a startling shock 
To tind their prayers pure and grand 
Were checked with sacrilegious hand. 

And when the door ajar was thrown. 
The sacrilegious one was shown 
To be a farmer's boy forsooth, 
Who said in accents real uncouth: 

My dad, unable to attend, 
Resolved his prayers here to send; 
They're out in yonder cart, you see; 
Examine and find what they be." 

On going out to view the cart 
The crowd found prayers from the heart: 
Potatoes, cabbage, meal, and meat, 
And other needed things to eat. 

That farmer's act by God was heard 
Above tiie man's who plead by word. 
Since noble deeds to heaven rise 
And waft as incense in the skies. 

For those alone v,ill God delight 
In whom both toil and prayer unite. 
As his apostle truly said • 
That faith devoid of works is dead. 



DOCTORS PAY. 

Believing his days on the earth about o'er, 
Av,d seeking escape from tlie Stygian shore, 
A miserly cuc'moo distressingly sick 
Once sent for a doctor to come to him quick. 



142 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

'Beseeching the latter to cure up his ill. 

And said he'd care naught for how steep was the bill. 

If only his aihnent was really allayed, 

The whole of the price should be speedily paid. 

The doctor most skillfully helped him along, 
But when Mr. Cuckoo grew rugged and strong 
The bill for the service he never would pay. 
Thus acting indeed in a dastardly way. 

When dunned for the fees. Mi*. Cuckoo replied: 
*' You did me no good, and I'd surely have died 
Had I kept up your treatment, I can truthfully say; 
I'm surprised at your cheek, sir, in asking for pay.''' 

Like that bird in its conduct too often is man. 
Refusing to honor his bills when he can; 
But worse than all that, and far more to liis shame, 
Returning for help wrongful censure and blame. 

Though all forms of ingratitude truly are cursed. 
Still man's treatment of doctoi-s appears as the worst. 
Since in sickness their aid he'll beseechingly pray. 
But in health may forget for the service to pay. 

He'll grumble o'er prices, and often will say: 
*' Too much," when 'tis only a dollar a day 
For curing his children and healing his wife. 
Or even protecting and saving his life. 

No questions like this in his business arise. 
Since talent in that he will certainly prize. 
Securing the best, and no matter what sum 
Is asked for tiie service 'twill readily come. 

Hence, judging of men by the prices they pay 
For business success, or for health, we might say 
Man prizes his money far more tiian his life, 
Or the health of his children, or that of his wife. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 143 

CHOICE OF FRIENDS. 

A stream of water, pure and grand. 
Runs silently through Syrian land. 
Till joining in its onward course 
An impure brook gives added force. 

Its current holds on to tlie sea, 
Though pure it nevermore can be. 
As by that flood of waters soiled 
Its purity's forever spoiled. 

E'en so in life the friends we meet. 
And as companions kindlv greet. 
Will lift us up by God like" grace. 
Or make us vile, if they are base. 

The heart that's once been foully stung. 
And had by vice its conscience wrung, ' 
Its virtue never may regain, 
E'en though repentance comes with pain. 

It thus behooves us all to ward 
Away the false, and keep a guard 
On those companions whom we choose. 
That they may not our faith abuse. 

Select your friends of lofty mind 
AVith hearts to truth and God inclined. 
So that their touch mav but inspire. 
And raise you up to something higher. 



144 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

MOTHER, DEAR MOTHER, MY HEART 

LONGS EOR THEE. 

Wherever on earth fute may call me to roam, 

AVhatever of joy I may happen to find. 
My heart will return to its earliest home. 

For hallowed in thought is the mother so kind, 
That viewed in the light of her love and her care 

1 learn, as I journey afar o'er the earth. 
There's nothing of pleasure to even compare, 

AVith the home of my childhood, the place of my birth. 

Cho. : mother, dear mother, my heart longs for thee, 
This form that thy arms as an infant caressed, 
Now a wanderer far over life's troubled sea, 
Would return as a babe and repose on thy breast. 

Thus though I may wander my thoughts will return. 

In visions of bliss that will never depart. 
To the home of my childhood and friends that I learn. 

Have graven their impress so deep on my heart, 
Wliere adored were the brothers and sisters I knew. 

And father translated and sainted above; 
Yet dearest of all was the mother so true, 

Conceived in affection and christened in love. 

Chorus. 

Her record of kindness I fondly recall. 

The songs that hath lulled me to sleep in the night, 
The bounties of morning, that surely would fall 

As my portion of love, in remembrance are bright; 
And liow, when dread sickness my form had distressed. 

And tossed me about in delirious rage, 
She slept not, but nestled me close to her breast. 

Are indelibly written in memory's page. 

Chorus. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 145 

Far better than riches are treasures above, 

And the wealth of the worhl I esteem as but dross. 
Compared to the mother, whose bounteous love 

Ilath taught tne in childhood the way of the cross: 
Hence the angel, who guarded my footsteps in youth. 

So gentle in manner coi-recting the wrong. 
And guiding me ever to goodness and trutii. 

In affection I garland and worship in song. 

Chorus. 

My mother, dear mother, who wouhl compare, 

The treasures of earth with a glory like thine? 
For what hath the world that in grandeur can share 

Thy peerless devotion? predestined to sliine 
As gems in thy crown when translated above, 

And clad like the seraphs in raiment of white, 
For soul-saving grace and immaculate love 

Thou shalt shine as the stars everlastingly bright. 

" Chorus. 



WEALTH. 



Wealth is noble in the aidance 

It may give to human needs. 
But ignoble in decadence 

When devoid of lofty deeds; 
Since the proper use of money. 

Sanctified in brotherhood. 
Makes men's lives sei-ene and sunny 

By its power of doing good. 

Wealth is noble when divjnely 

Pointing upward to the stars. 
But demonic when malignly 

Used to murder men in wars; 
Though for valor so exalted 

Should the heroes be adored. 
Yet by love should men be halted 

From resortinof to the sword. 



146 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Wejilth is noble when concurrent 

With the wish to work and plan. 
But from action when deterrent 

Proves a blighting curse to man; 
Being thus a means of culture. 

Varied graces to impart, 
Or again a horrid vulture 

Eating out the moral heart. 



Wealth is noble to inherit 

When emplo3'ed for human aid, 
But devoid of any merit 

When it^s used for self-parade; 
For the only type of action 

Underneath the shining sun, 
Crowned with endless satisfaction 

Is the good that may be done. 



Wealth is noble when refulgent 

With the deeds that are divine. 
But when only self-indulgent 

It will often be malign; 
One appearing like an idyl 

In the sweetness of its verse. 
And the other suicidal. 

Proving but a moral curse. 



Wealth is noble as its able 

To exalt the human race, 
But with minds that are unstable 

It may lead to their disgrace; 
Since within the marble palace 

It may prove a source of strife. 
Leaving as a poisoned chalice 

Moral death instead of life. 



AND OTUELi POEMS. 147 

THE FLOUNDER. 

The bnby flounder born is free 

And sportive in its play, 
And swims about like other fish 

Throughout its early day; 
Yet after but the briefest spell 

Its mode of life is changed. 
So all tlie organs which exist 

Appear to be deranged. 

Like varied fishes of the tribe 

With which it is allied, 
It ceases soon to be erect 

And falls upon its side; 
And is predoomed to lowly life. 

And by its action led 
To living on the ocean^s slime. 

Or swimming near its bed. 

The light air-bhidder nature gave 

To help the fishes rise. 
Becomes, through lack of proper use. 

Too small to recognize; 
So that the flounder, first from choice. 

And afterward compelled 
By want of true development. 

Is at the bottom held. 

Resembling flounders, every man 

Hath powers organized 
To lead him to exalted life, 

If wisely exercised; 
But which may shrink to rudiments 

By lack of proper use, 
Beyond his own capacity 

Again to reproduce. 



148 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Learn well^ my sonl, the lesson taught, 

A higlier life is thine; 
Thou wert not born to grovel here. 

But prove thyself divine; 
Then rise to lead that ethel life. 

As God hath thee designed, 
And make thyself a noble man — 

Be not the flounder kind. 



LOVE. 



Though the world is but a Babel 

AVhere confusion seems to run. 
Love is yet the golden cable 

That can bind all hearts in one; 
Since within the Christian palace, 

Or the heathen bungalow, 
It is true communion's chalice. 

Setting human hearts aglow. 

Love with selfishness is laden. 

Which all brutish life controls. 
Whether carp or low menliaden, 

Or the humble, siglitless moles — 
Making some like the ichneumon 

In the quest of blood athirst. 
And humanity inhuman. 

Doing deeds that are accursed. 

Thus we have the desperado 

Who his manhood will inurn. 
And to gain a small crusado 

Stoop to murder, rob and burn; 
Yet no better are those nations 

That, to brigandage inclined, 
Seek unworthy aspirations 

Through the slaughter of mankind. 



AND OTHER POEMS. I49 

Hence the world is rent asunder, 

Torn by baleful crime and strife. 
As the parasites but plunder 

Others in the course of life — 
All intent upon the reaping 

What another man hath sown. 
And dishonest bent on keeping 

What a fellowman should own. 



Yet the world hath nobler manhood 

Which in righteousness erect, 
Broader than mere petty clanhood. 

Doth the rights of all respect, 
And presents the gracious giver. 

Who, when touched by human woe. 
Drops his wealth that like a river 

In benevolence shall flow. 



Love with selfishness is burdened 

Steeling man against his kind. 
Though the higher type is guerdoned, 

As the worthy deeds enshrined; 
Viewed through self's keen-eyed detector 

By the nobleness of heart. 
Sweeter than the sweetest nectar, 

Kich enjoyment will impart. 



Selfishness, that baleful giant. 

Only proves that love is strong. 
Though perverted and defiant. 

Caring naught for right or wrong; 
Love cf self's the necromancer 

Spurring men to toil and plan. 
Yet may be tiie moral cancer 

Eating up the nobler man. 



150 ^'HE FRAILTIES OF HUMANIl T 

Still the type above decrial, 

Pure, unselfish, and serene. 
Springs by peerless self-denial 

From the humble Nazarene; 
Knowing in its gracious action. 

And exalted power for good, 
Neither race, nor creed, nor faction. 

But a common brotherhood. 

Noble love, the moral giant, 

Lifting men from sordid strife. 
With fraternal deeds compliant 

Leading on to higher life; 
Crushing out all chance concision. 

Spurning selfishness and vice. 
Stands a messenger elysian. 

Fitting man for paradise. 



WAR^S DOUBLE PUKPORT. 

War only is glorious 
When it's victorious; 
But when a defeat 
Compels a retreat. 
Or every defender 
Is forced to surrender, 
Then no laurels abound, 
And no heroes are crowned. 

War full of barbarity 
Brings popularity 
When crowned with success, 
Caring naught foi- distress. 
And horrors inflicted, 
Or rights interdicted. 
Since the victors alone 
Men as heroes will own. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 151 

War born in rapacity, 
Waged with audacity. 
In the popular mind. 
To causes all blind, 
Yet always so mobile. 
Will rank as the noble, 
When the crime is concealed 
In the glory revealed. 



War, trait of insanity, 
Killing humanity, 
Reflects on the race, 
And bespeaks man's disgrace, 
Yet the sword's demolition 
May bring manumission. 
When a halo divine 
Round its luster will shine. 



War, waged for nihility. 
Proving nobility. 
Incongruous here, 
Yet the truth will appear. 
This monster of trouble 
In purport is double. 
Either baleful in fight. 
Or securing the right. 

War often malignantly. 
Sometimes benignantly. 
Hath humanity cursed. 
Or its fetters hath bui'st; 
Thus this work of the demon. 
Or shield of the freeman. 
Is the vilest of eartli, 
Or most peerless in w^orth. 



163 TEE FRAILTIES OP HUMANITT 

DEEDS BETTER THAN CREEDS. 

As evening shades were settling clown 
Witliin a wealthy Eastern town, 
A little girl in shabb}^ dress, 
Compelled by want and dire distress. 
Was found upon the city street 
Accosting those she chanced to meet — 
In timid style, with open palms. 
Yet urgently beseeching alms. 

To eacli in cliildish way she said, 
** My n)amma's sick, my papa's dead. 
Our house is cold, we have no meat, 
Nor bread, nor anything to eat.'' 
Revealing thus a tale of woe 
That touch the hearts of men aglow. 
With love of man, which ever leads 
In sorrow up to lofty deeds. 

A churchman passed along that way. 
Who for the poor was wont to pray. 
And for the lost in heathen lands 
W^ould nobly give at God's commands; 
Yet somehow in his Christian creed 
The poor at home would scarcely heed. 
And on a night extremely wild 
He could not stop to help this child. 

Thus others came, and others passed. 

As heedlessly as did the last, 

'Till finally there came along 

A man whose faith was clearly wi'ong; 

In fact of. boasted unbelief, 

Yet with a heart foi- human grief. 

And touched by sonow, want and pain. 

To him her plea was not in vain. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 153 

For heeding not the passing throng, 
He took the chikl and went along 
By stately church and lofty dome, 
Tiiroiigh street and alley, to her home; 
And there, commingled with distress. 
Saw want and woe and wretchedness. 
By wliich his pnrse was opened wide 
That needed aid might be supplied. 

Who dares to say in God's pure light 
What did the recording angel write 
Against the churchman with his creeds 
And for this man of noble deeds? 
Since this one seemed divinely led. 
As he v/ho gives, the Master said, 
A cup in mercy to the poor 
Of his reward shall be secure. 

A box thus given to the poor 
Tiie donor's standing may secure; 
For when God's spirit's in the box. 
We ask not is he orthodox, 
As noble acts of mercy shine 
In hearts when touched by fire divine. 
And maii may prove by gracious deeds 
A faith transcending all the creeds. 



THE FARM. 

Within the handles of the plow, 

The share the sod upturning. 
And every clod beneath our feet 

Are lessons worth the learning. 
Thus pregnant is the soil with truth. 

As round each atom hovers 
The story of the pristine earth, 

And all its past uncovers. 



154 TBE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

For in the structure of the soil 

Resounds througli ancient eons 
The tale of fire and water's strife 

With frost and glacial paeaur, 
When chaos reigned in power supreme. 

And old forms were dissolving, 
Like Ixion on his fiery wheel 

For evermore revolving. 



It brings to mind a time ore earth 

With sun and moon were lighted. 
But firmament and all the deep 

In chaos were united; 
When earth was rocking from lier base. 

And in the fiery surges 
The birth of planets echoed forth 

Commingled with the dirges. 



It tells about the primal earth 

In nebulous cotuiition. 
Condensed to make a solid crust. 

And its decomposition; 
When all the varied elements. 

By chemical attraction. 
Combined in forming neutral salts 

And oxidized reaction. 



It shows hov/ metamorphic power 

Effects its transformations, 
And pseudomorphic forms have come 

By filling eliquatious. 
As often all the pristine rocks 

Have undergone refusion 
AVhere many fissures have been filled 

By precious ore intrusion. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 155 

It speaks of times when Typliou boiled 

With fire-breatliing gases, 
And Vulcan in his power forged 

Fierce floods of molten masses, 
That rolling onward in their course, 

All things to overpower, 
Yet left in their destructive path 

Of earth another dower. 



It will suggest the earthquake shock. 

In primal forming matter, 
With miglit to rend the continents. 

The cnist again to shatter; 
As Pkito held his fiery reign 

And kept the land and ocean, 
Slow forming from the seething flame, 

Oft boiling in commotion. 

It speaks of continents that rose 

By nature's grand upheaval, 
And lofty chains of mountains made 

Within the times primeval; 
While underneath the seething sea, 

Like man from man's deridance. 
There slunk away the plastic crust 

From waters in subsidence. 

It tells about an atmosphere 

Surcharged with acid gases. 
That decomposed by surplus heat. 

The old volcanic glasses; 
And of the early forming ruin. 

Which in its deposition 
Produced upon the heated rocks 

A 'constant ebullition. 



156 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

It speaks of water tearing down 

The moinitains by erosion, 
And frost and gases in the rock 

Like dynamite explosion, 
Oft breaking np the solid crust. 

While forces of attrition 
Conjoined to mingle other earth 

For final deposition. 



In brief, within the humble soil. 

In all its former ranges. 
And all the forces that react. 

Producing many changes; 
From primal times to latest date. 

Through varied combination. 
The philoso})hic mind can trace 

The record of creation. 



And of climatic changes known 

In geologic ages, 
It teaches some to find a cause 

From astronomic sages. 
Who thus will trace the changing course 

To winter in aphelion; 
The earth pursues, until we lose 

The warmer perihelion. 



It thus recalls the greater length 

To earth's eccentric orbit. 
Extending farther from the sun, 

So winter may absorb it; 
And also shows the plane of earth 

By gravitation's praxis, 
Responsive to that subtile force 

Deflected from her axis. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 15^ 

Instructed by the lieavens above. 

And by the things thereunder, 
One finds relationsliips between 

Tliat fill his soul with wonder; 
For in such astronomic laws, 

And in the sun-spot ranges, 
Upon the earth is found the power 

To bring climatic changes. 



But while our heat may be reduced 

By heaven-born deterrents, 
Yet on the earth are causes seen 

In oceanic currents; 
With otliers still in lesser heat 

Diffused by radiation, 
And in the shape of continents 

And change of elevation. 

Each farm suggests still other farms 

And types of vegetation, 
Adapted on each one to thrive 

With proper cultivation; 
And speaks of winds that bear aloft 

The soil again to scatter,' 
Its fragments most diversely blent 

With other kinds of matter. 



It tells of overflowing Nile, 

Whose surging waters hurtle. 
And teem with microscopic dead. 

The land to render fertile; 
And of the dread volcanic force. 

With currents, dykes, and ditches, 
Which, though destructive in its course, 

'J'he country round enriches. 



158 THE FRA ILTIE8 OF HUMANITY 

For thus, witli power to make all lands 

As fertile as the Rhenish, 
Bright Ceres waves her fljiming torch 

To human w^nts replenish; 
While, like Proserpina, allowed 

To -leave the lower regions, 
Her seeds entombed will reappear 

Increased to growing legions. 



It tells US that the breathing earth. 

Though seeming calm and placid. 
Through cracks and fissures in its crust 

Exhales carbonic acid; 
And stranger still within the earth. 

Commingled with bitumen. 
Finds gas and oils confined in rock. 

Our dwellings to illumine. 



It speaks of heaven-soaring clouds, 

And vapor condensation. 
Begetting in the thirsty earth 

The growth of vegetation; 
Which shows the want of light and heat 

Within the polar I'egions, 
And in the tropics strongest life 

In multiplying legions. 



It will suggest how modern earth. 

By methods of rock-breaking. 
In richness borji of their decay. 

Still other lands is making; 
For seeds of plants on crumbled rocks 

Take root in gerinination. 
On which the animals that feed 

Through death add new formation. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 159 

It tells about tlie hnnian race. 

In intellect ascendant, 
As on the plants the soil be,£:ets 

Man^s future is despondent; 
And shows ns how jtrinieval men. 

Devoid of homes and taverns. 
Like tiny emmets dwelt within 

Tiie sunless depths of caverns. 



The same is true of low^er life. 

It thus must find existence. 
Relying for its sustenance 

Upon the soil's consistence; 
Hence from the richness of the earth 

The plant in living plunders, 
Transforming it in vai-ied ways 

To make a world of wonders. 



The lower and the higher life 

Depend upon each other. 
For were the plants from earth removed 

The animals would smother; 
Since everywhere the atmosphere 

Befouled by respiration. 
For us is quickly purified 

By breathing vegetation. 



And everywhere in living light 

There comes before the farmer 
Some types of life divinely clad. 

Like feudal knights in armor. 
Eclipsing in its handiwork, 

For lightness and protection. 
The highest mortals can conceive 

Of beauty and perfection. 



160 THE FRAILTIES OF IIUMAJSITY 

The scales upon the reptile tribe. 

The carapace of turtles, 
Th.e shells enclosing tender snails, 

Like well-adjusted kirtles; 
And all of nature's armored plate. 

Exhibits iu production 
The greatest strength and smallest weight 

Conjoined in its construction. 



The test of tiny rhizopods, 

Oft with connecting stolons. 
And chitine wings the beetles bear. 

May show the modern solons, 
The highest type of armor known 

For warfare predatory, 
Upon the backs of lowly forms 

Equipped in nature's glory. 



The lobster in his brigandine. 

And humble armadillo. 
Or porcupine full armed with quills;, 

Like s])ikes within the willow. 
And e'en tlie creature thinly clad. 

As emmet, mole, or gopher. 
Have wisdom for the farmer Jobs 

Like that once taught by Zopliar. 



Thus nature weaves her chains of truth 

For one beside the furrow. 
From mining architecture taught 

Where armless creatures burrow. 
To dwellings set in rugged cliffs 

By rock-devoted eiders, 
And houses made by toiling ants. 

And homes of handless spiders. 



AND OTIIEIl POEMS. 161 

There's music round the farmer's path 

Of song-birds sweetly si noting, 
Their notes melodious with love, 

In heaven-born anthems I'inging; 
While humming of the insect host. 

From stinging wasp to hornet. 
As nature's overtures transcend 

The bagpipe or the cornet. 



Concordant in her living lays. 

In all her parts canorous, 
Terpsichore in joy presides 

O'er tuneful nature's chorus; 
While through her sweet harmonic notes. 

From monoc3'sts to plovers, 
God writes his music in the soul 

For all of nature's lovers. 



Hence one who humbly tills the soil 

May see the bird-tribes flutter. 
And listen with enraptured heart 

To all the songs they utter; 
Or he may catch with ravished ear 

From nature's modulation. 
Through all her works in dulcet notes, 

The rhythm of creation. 



Beside the plow the insect host 

In death ful love rejoices. 
And relics of the primal man 

Still speak with silent voices; 
While round about the roving moth 

The lamp or candle scorches, 
And there to call her novel mate 

The glow-worm lights her torches. 



A/ 



162 Till!] FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Ami like tlie life which must depart 

Kesponsive to Abaddon, 
While other living forms appear. 

One's anxious heart to gladden; 
Transmuted on the farmer's trees. 

The humble grubs and maggots 
Outrival in their after life 

The colors of the agates. 



For all around are seeming worms. 

In deepest degradation. 
Which breaking chrysales become 

The flowers of creation; 
Thus every brilliant butterfly. 

Or Luna moth, or miller, 
Which fairy-like appears divine. 

Was once a caterpillar. 



There's beauty round the farmer's path 

In all its glowing features, 
Where God hath painted grandly bright 

The glory of his creatures; 
And set his signet on his own 

In knightly decoration 
Of living types which reattain 

That matchless exaltation. 



The ruddy farm-boy in himself. 

So full of youthful blunders. 
Is yet in all his parts a book 

Of wisdom and of wonders. 
In which whoever will may read, 

With more than word attraction. 
Of mechanism well designed. 

And perfect in its action. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 103 

lly:1raulic in its mode and plan, 

IMie heart in constant tliinnpinor 
To outward parts for their supply 

The blood is ever pun)})ing; 
While lungs within will change the man 

By unobserved combustion. 
Exhaling as a poison gas 

The products of inustiou. 



In mechanism thus prepared 

By wonderful contriving. 
Are organs generating heat 

To do the body-driving, 
All set within the si^eleton. 

Well clad witii fat and muscle. 
And skin designed to guard the parts 

Where coursing globules justle. 



With eyes and ears discretely formed 

For pleasure and sensation, 
With nerves divine controlling all. 

The noblest in creation. 
Are other parts that make the whole. 

In every look and feature, 
A grand machine of perfect type. 

The highest living creature. 



Endowed with reproductive power, 

So in the consecution 
The child may grow and form the man 

By simple evolution; 
And yet within electric force. 

From vernal youth to doter, 
But proves the man a dynamo. 

An animated motor. 



164 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Subversive to the wants of man 

Are other forms converted, 
By farmers who as thouglit machines 

Their powers have exerted; 
Whose toil, all redolent of health. 

In life so full of bustle. 
Brings every organ into play. 

Producing brain and muscle. 



But yet this wonderful machine. 

The highest of creation. 
When life departs will form the soil 

To nourish vegetation; 
As in the Nicaraguan states. 

Beneath the bishop's miter. 
The burial grounds are often sold 

To manufacture niter. 



Thus many great imperial dead 

Are measured by the liter. 
And have their soon-forgotten forms. 

Converted to saltpeter; 
Transmuted dust, that from men's bones 

And muscles by necrosis, 
Exhibits in its cycling course 

The real metempsychosis. 



For matter ever circulates. 

And in decomposition 
It only changes its estate 

To take a new condition; 
Since all the matter and the force 

In varied forms we cherish, 
Transmuted often, still remains. 

As naught on earth can perish. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 165 

The fiirm may be an Etlen bower. 

And in its products finer 
Than any which the ancients grew 

Upon the plains of Shinar; 
For nature's gems of laurel wreaths 

The price of sturdy hibor 
Transfigure all the farmers' fields 

Like that upon Mount Tabor. 



His grain transcends in yellow gold 

That from the land of Ophir, 
Wiiile, round about, the forest woods 

Excel the ancient gopher; 
And as the Jews returned from strife 

Appeared when met by Oded, 
So with the product of his toil 

In fall his barns are loaded. 



Upon the soil of varied kinds, 

From sandy dunes to rapils. 
Grow fruits in rich luxuriance. 

Like peaches, pears and apples; 
The sunshine drops it rays of gold. 

The bees produce their honey, 
And in the glebe his plow upturns, 

Stands wisdom joined with money. 



Upon the farm the nettles grown, 

Which, through appearing placid, 
To pressure always causing pain, 

Injecting formic acid; 
Through spines resembling rattlesnakes. 

And hurtful to the farmer, 
Show God's provision for the plants. 

In this defensive armor. 



166 TUE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

Beside liis plow and in bis woods. 

As features of creation, 
Designed to give to nature's forms 

Unending variation, 
He sees a host of parasites. 

Whose roots and stems have taken 
Their nutriment from other plants. 

Like some benighted Achan. 



Within his woods in roots and plants. 

And in the blooming flower, 
Are buried many alkaloids 

Kenowned for healing power — 
Suggesting to the thinking mind 

That with exact precision 
For all the morbid states of life 

Creation made provision. 



Beside the plov/share and the sod. 

And bulbous roots and tangles, 
Within the stones in crystal forms 

Are geometric angles; 
While in the roots by exosmose; 

And endosmose the power 
That lifts the sap upon the tree. 

And makes the charming flower. 



With dew-gems oversliining art, 

And all the forests painted 
On trees and windows by the frost. 

The farmer is acquainted; 
And on his lands the floral world 

Produces golden pistils, 
While round his home the falling snow 

Leaves mathematic crystals. 



AND OTHER P0KM8. 167 

In beauty's gorgeous evergreen, 

Transcending ancient Gedor, 
His home may teem with pinnacles 

Of graceful pine and cedar; 
While myriad plants, on every hand 

Along his round of duty. 
Show nature's paint-pots emptied out 

In tints of matchless beauty. 



Yet nature versed in human taste, 

The bright, which art abhorrest, 
Hath left, and set in restful green 

The background of the forest; 
And on this field of pleasing green. 

The blight upon the duller. 
She dyes her flowei's in piebald hues 

Of complimentary color. 



In bright mosaics autumn frosts, 

Like dewdrops from Aurora, 
Paint evei-ywhere in r.-iinbow tints 

The sadly blushing flora; 
Although upon the largest tree, 

With all its leafy flounces, 
The color matter is so slight 

It may be weighed by ounces. 

The landscape nature paints for man, 

In finished touch and splendor. 
Exceeds in polished elegance 

The highest art can render. 
In short, creation spreads her charms 

To his enraptured vision, 
And daily brings before his eyes 

Her Eden fields elysian. 



168 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 

The weather weaves her wreaths of gold 

For every toiling peasant, 
Whei'e nature sliows in glory bright 

The grandeur of the present^ 
Conjoining it with all the past. 

As God in love is strewing 
Eich beauty all around the path 

The farmer is pursuing. 



Above his fields in golden light. 

The earth again to dower, 
Bright Phoebus drives his flaming steeds, 

Charged with transmuting power; 
And there within the somber night. 

The heavens in grandeur strewing. 
Comes Phoebe with her train of nymphs. 

The flying stars reviewing. 



Above his head the sapphire skies. 

Beyond all art engenders, 
Are crimsoned witli a thousand dyes. 

Set in prismatic splendors; 
While gold-fleeced clouds that deck the blue 

Of ether's over-story. 
His sunsets paint in brilliant hues 

Of iridescent glory. 

Emblazoned on these heavens above. 

Where countless stars are shining; 
And in the deepest caves of earth. 

Where peerless gems are mining; 
And on the sui-face of our globe. 

Within the crystal rory, 
God sets his signet round our paths 

In royal gems of glory. 



AND OTHER POEMS. 169 

noble farm I Exalted life! 

Lo! with tiiy many burdens 
Kind nature weaves her charms of truth 

To be thy suitor's guerdons; . 
And wisdom opens wide her hand 

So that the surface-breaker. 
In all the grandeur of the earth 

And welkin is partaker. 



INDEX. 



PAGE, 

Action Everywhere 133 

Affectation Ridiculous 83 

Aim, The Noble 77 

Animals, The Blind, in the Mammoth Cave 74 

Armor, Animal 159 

Best of Some Things 103 

Blue and Gray, Reunion of . 110 

Bluster, Significance of 92 

Books V 

Bore, A 55 

Bouquet, Choosing a Love 129 

Brain, A Measure of 79 

Brotherhood of Man 64 

Cat and the Mouse 93 

Civilized Man a Barbarian Still 76 

Climatic Changes 156 

Coquette, The. 78 

Courage, True 20 

Creation, 'i'he Crowning Work of 22 

Deeds Better than Creeds 152 

Doctors' Pay 141 

Earth, The Transformed 127 

Egotism 22 

Envy or Jealousy 140 

Evil Speaking 116 

Farm. The 153 

Flounder, The 147 

Friends, Choice of 143 

Gentleman, The 20 

Getting Insured 106 

God. The Marvelous Works of 23 

God's Way The Best 62 

Going Home 126 

Haunted House, The 95 

Herods of To-day, The 94 



172 INDEX. 



Honesty, A Test of 55 

Humanity, The Frailties of ^ 9 

Humanity, The Present, Better than the Pa'st 19 

Humilitas Elata Erit 129 

Ideal. The, Makes the Man 89 

Insults Unworthy of Notice 89 

Judge Not 113 

Jus Vincet 63 

Lesson, An Object , 53 

Let the Daylight In 125 

Life's J ourney 51 

Lithophylls 25 

Love 148 

Love is Blind 98 

Mamma's Cross To-day 139 

Mars '77 

Master's Rule, The 82 

Mechanism, Animal 162 

Metempsychosis 164 

Money Without Brains an Inj ury 100 

Mother, Dear Mother 144 

Nature's Music 161 

Nature Subdues Man. . , 24 

Noble, The 99 

One's Self, To See 97 

Optima 81 

Ornithoidichnites 70 

Praver, Effectual 140 

Pride, Ancestral 140 

Politeness, True 138 

Proem v 

Rationis Expers 79 

Right, Be Sure You Are, then Go Ahead 53 

Sabbath School Superintendent, To a ... . 109 

Safety, A Source of 76 

School Teachers, The 68 

Selling the Soul 63 

Sentinel of the Soul, The 136 

Shams of the Age, The 47 

Spirit, In What 79 

Success, The Way to 137 

Thanksgiving 123 

Time, Waste of 63 

Tomb, The Lesson of the 90 

Tongue, The Long 81 

Trangression Brings Punishment 80 

Truth Alone Hurts 86 



INDEX. 1>V3 

PAGE. 

Truth and Falseliood Mingle 56 

Universe, Tbe Celestial 53 

Unnecessary 20 

Vice, The Protectorate from 131 

War's Double Purport 150 

Wealth _ ' , 145 

Wealth, The Impotency of 62 

World, The, Would be a Paradise 87 

Words , . iig 



